Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/349

1517] all, Fra Bartolommeo painted his great altar-piece of the Deposition, in the Pitti, for the Augustinian convent outside the Porta San Gallo. The shadow of the coming end may have helped to deepen the pathos and reverent feeling which give this noble picture so high a place among the works of a decadent age. On the 15th of June, 1517, Fra Bartolommeo sent a little Madonna to Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, together with a head of Christ for his wife, Lucrezia Borgia, excusing himself for his delay in gratifying the Duke's wishes, owing to pressure of work. Then he went to spend the summer months at his favourite retreat, Pian di Mugnone, and enjoy a short interval of sorely-needed rest. But he soon took up his brush again and painted a fresco of Christ appearing to the Magdalen, in the convent church, and a portrait of Savonarola as S. Pietro Martire, in the Dominican habit, with the sword-cut in his head. This precious picture, in which the painter gave a last proof of the faithful affection with which he clung to the memory of his beloved teacher, was removed to San Marco after Fra Bartolommeo's death, and fondly treasured by the brothers as a relic of their most illustrious artist. Early in the autumn he returned to Florence, but a fresh attack of fever carried him off in a few days. He died on the 6th of October, 1517, at the age of forty-two, and was buried with all honour in his own convent church.