Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/344

296 given to Filippino, but afterwards abandoned in the troubled times which followed. Now the Medici had been once more expelled, and Fra Girolamo's dream of a free city was again revived. Once more the old cries were heard in the streets, and Christ was once more proclaimed King in Florence. Fra Bartolommeo received the Gonfaloniere's commission with joy, and set to work with enthusiasm on the great picture which was to commemorate this event. This noble cartoon, in brown monochrome, of the "Virgin pleading for the liberties of Florence," with St. Anne and the ten patron Saints of the Florentines at her side, is now in the Uffizi, and the original drawings, together with several studies of the different figures, are still preserved in the same collection. But before the work was finished, another revolution had taken place. The Medici returned again, and the short-lived dream of liberty was over. Eventually the cartoon was purchased by Ottaviano de' Medici, a warm admirer of Fra Bartolommeo's art, and placed in the church of S. Lorenzo.

In 1514, Fra Bartolommeo listened to his friend Raphael's urgent entreaties, and paid a visit to Rome, where he was the guest of Fra Mariano Fetti, the keeper of the papal seals, at the Dominican convent of S. Silvestro on the Quirinal. But the climate affected his health, and at the end of two months he left Rome, seriously ill with malarial fever, and was sent by his Superior to the country hospital of the Dominicans at Pian di Mugnone. During the next two years, in spite of failing health and frequent returns of fever, Fra Bartolommeo's activity was greater than ever. The