Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/87

1430] repeated Orcagna's composition in many instances. After finishing the choir, Andrea was employed to execute three large frescoes in the Strozzi Chapel. Of these, the Inferno, an exact representation of the Malebolge of Dante, whose poem Andrea studied attentively, has been entirely repainted, while the Paradise and Last Judgment have been much damaged by damp and restoration. Enough remains, however, to give us a high idea of Orcagna's powers. The forms are better drawn, there is a distinct advance in structural accuracy in foreshortening and modelling, together with more beauty of feature than is found in the work of other Giotteschi masters. The best qualities of contemporary Sienese and Florentine art are here combined, while there is a grandeur and solemnity about the whole that recalls Giotto's conceptions. The two angels playing the lyre and violin at the feet of Christ and his Mother, in the Paradise, are strong and graceful beings, and the white-robed Virgin kneeling before the Judge, interceding for sinful mortals, is one of the finest figures in Trecento art. The large altar-piece in the same chapel was also painted for the Strozzi family by Andrea, after he had completed the frescoes, between the years 1354 and 1357. A figure of Christ enthroned and worshipped by angels occupies the central compartment. On the right, the Virgin presents St. Thomas Aquinas, to whom he gives the book of the Gospels; and on the left, the Baptist introduces St. Peter, who receives the keys from his Lord's hands. St. Katharine and St. Michael stand behind the Virgin, and a noble figure of St. Paul, with a long beard and intellectual head, accompanied by