Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/365

1531] position has caused the work to be compared with Titian's great picture of S. Pietro Martire. The last scene from the story of S. Filippo—Children Healed by the touch of the Saint, is especially lovely in colour, but the finest of the whole series is the Birth of the Virgin, which was not completed till 1514. Ghirlandajo's well-known fresco of the subject in Santa Maria Novella, was evidently fresh in the artist's mind when he painted this. The same motives of the Mother receiving visitors on her couch, and of the maid washing the Child in a basin by the fire are repeated, but there is more elegance in the women-forms, greater ease and variety in their movements, and far more charm in the whole composition. The Cupids on the mantelpiece, and the graceful arabesques on frieze and cornice are in the latest style of Renaissance decoration. The general impression of the work is of a singularly modern character. By this time, Andrea's talents had already attracted the notice of Ottaviano de' Medici, and in 1515, when Leo X. visited Florence, he was employed to construct a temporory façade for the Duomo, adorned with chiaroscuro statues and bas-reliefs, which excited general admiration, and was pronounced by the Pope to be as fine as marble. Meanwhile, both Andrea and his friend and assistant, Franciabigio, had taken up their residence in the Via della Sapienza, in a house afterwards used as stables by the Tuscan Grand Dukes, close to the Servi convent. It was a favourite abode with young artists, and Leonardo's friend, the sculptor Rustici, Jacopo Sansovino, and many other well-known masters, were already lodging there. Together they led a gay and joyous life, and