Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/353

1515] Uffizi. The treatment of the subject follows that of Giotto's in the Arena Chapel, but the traditional types are cleverly adapted to the style of the painter's own day. The porch of Elizabeth's house is transformed into a Renaissance portico with elegant pilasters adorned with arabesques, and only the two figures essential to the story are retained. Both the easy folds of the drapery and the glowing colours of Mary's deep blue mantle and of Elizabeth's green robe and orange cloak, recall Fra Bartolommeo's work. The group is arranged with masterly skill, the forms of the meeting women are framed in by the archway, and the eager action of the aged Saint, as she bends forward to greet the Mother of her Lord, with an expression of tender sympathy on her face, is finely rendered. But in those golden days, even second-rate artists knew instinctively how to design great pictures, and occasionally attained to the highest excellence. The predella of the picture, consisting of three small subjects,—the Annunciation, Nativity, and Presentation—is in the Uffizi, as well as the original drawing of the Visitation.

A round of the Madonna adoring the Christ, which is more in Lorenzo di Credi's style, was painted about the same time, while a large altar-piece of the Virgin between St. Jerome and St. Zenobius, in the Louvre, was finished in 1506, for a chapel in the Trinità. In the same year, Albertinelli was employed by the monks of the Certosa in Val d'Ema, three miles outside the Porta Romana, to paint a fresco of the Crucifixion in their Chapter-house. This fine work is executed in Fra Bartolommeo's manner, but the