Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/94

70 where he was born about 1370, this gentle brother, who was received into the Order in December 1391, brought ideal charm and sweetness to blend with the Giottesque style which he acquired from Agnolo Gaddi. Both the early Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi, and the altar-piece of the Annunciation in S. Trinità, are curiously like Simone Martini's work, while the frescoes of the Virgin's life, which have been recently recovered from the whitewash which concealed them, recall Giotto's types and composition. These last are full of solemn inspiration and genuine artistic charm, and the good monk's poetic invention finds expression in the broken and varied scenery, the islands and castellated rocks and sea-shore of the landscape backgrounds. But Lorenzo's masterpiece is the large Coronation in the Uffizi, which he painted in 1413, for the high altar of his own convent church, and which was removed, 200 years later, to the daughter convent of Cerreto, half-way between Florence and Siena. Here the tender devotion of the saints' heads and the angels swinging censers or kneeling round the throne already speak to us of Fra Angelico, while new and brilliant effects of colour are produced by the use of transparent white glazes. As in the works of many Sienese painters, reality is sacrificed to artistic effect, and under the saintly artist's hand, earthly objects are transfigured by the glory of heaven. The Camaldolese painter soon acquired a fame which drew him beyond the narrow precincts of his convent walls. In 1402, he went to Rome to paint a missal for Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and on his return he was employed by the City Guilds to design cartoons for the stained-