in Florence, his name will ever be intimately connected. There he dwelt in saintly calm; humble, holy, devout; working with all diligence at the command of his prior; taking no gain or payment for himself; altering nothing, because he believed his first inspiration to be direct from God; painting Christ and Mary, according to Montalembert, "only on his knees, and his crucifixes amid floods of tears;" adorning the cells of the friars with those marvelous frescoes which now shine, faintly faded, "less like a picture at all than some celestial shadow on the gray old walls." An eloquent writer has thus imaged his convent-life: "Around him all actions were prescribed, and all objects colorless; day after day uniform hours brought him the same bare walls, the same dark lustre of the wainscoting, the same straight folds of cowls and frocks, the same rustling of steps passing to and fro between refectory and chapel. But amid this monotony his heart involuntarily summoned up and contemplated the concourse of divine figures. Glittering staircases of jasper and amethyst rose above each other up to the throne on which sat celestial beings. Golden aureoles gleamed around their brows; red, azure, and green robes, fringed, bordered, and striped with gold, flashed like glories. All was light; it was the outburst of mystic illumination."

No observer of to-day need consider such language exaggerated if he carefully notes the peculiar merits of this master. His range is narrow, but within its own limits comes as near perfection as human art can ever reach. He painted only sacred subjects, and those only in the most sacred manHis forms were always closely draped-a fortunate circumstance, when we consider his ignorance of anatomy; his

ner.

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coloring was clear, pure, and tender beyond the power of words to describe; and the expression of his faces so innocently radiant, so exalted, and so heavenly, that a glance at their beauty is like a glimpse into another world. No wonder that after regarding his holy throngs he should be ever known as Fra Angelico, and almost canonized in addition as “Il Beato," so that in Italian catalogues he is usually entered as "Beato Angelico." His deficiencies were what might naturally be expected. His chief gift being imaginative spirituality, he failed in delineating the real and the actual. His drawing is often faulty, and his proportions incorrect. He could depict repose, but not action; and when he attempts to portray the workings of any evil or malignant passions the result is almost ludicrously weak. All his sinners "look like sheep in wolves' clothing." Even if he tries to paint foul fiends—an effort into which I regret to say his gentle nature was on rare occasions beguiled-they are only very ugly but very tame hobgoblins, with scarcely any flavor of the genuine devil in their composition.

In America Fra Angelico is most widely known by the angels on gilded panels which are so generally imported into every city. These are copied from the originals in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, where they are painted in the frame of a large picture, styled a "Tabernacle," representing a Madonna and Child, with attendant saints. The angels, playing on instruments, stand, in the size and colors in which we see them, on the gilt ground of the frame, entirely surrounding the interior picture. A much smaller but most exquisitely finished painting of a similar subject, similarly grouped, a standing Madonna and Child, called the "Madonna della Stella," with

figures of miniature proportions, rests upon an easel in one of the apartments of San Marco. This building also contains, besides the frescoes in the cells already alluded to, and several other wall-paintings in the corridors and cloisters, Fra Angelico's largest but by no means most pleasing work—a Crucifixion or Adoration of the Cross," in the chapterhouse, made the scene of the interview between Savonarola and Romola in George Eliot's novel. This immense composition covers the whole side of the room, and shows us Christ on the cross, with the two thieves near him, and St. Mark, the patron saint of the convent, and many life-sized Fathers, founders and heads of orders, gathered in worshiping rows below. "The main event goes for nothing, but Jerome and Augustine, Francis and Dominic, with faces more real than our own, have carried on a perpetual adoration ever since, and never drooped or failed." In the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts we discover a few other specimens of the painter's skill, especially a "Last Judgment," an extraordinary piece, whose centre represents a long pavement of tombs, out of which rise the dead, having thrown off the stone slabs which marked their burial-place. Above them we perceive Christ the Judge with descending angels. At his left is hell, with demons seizing the condemned; while at his right is paradise, a fair, flowery meadow lit with stars, and thronged with angels who press forward to receive the just. They meet; they embrace; golden halos gleam upon their heads, and hand-in-hand they glide along, through the bright perspective, toward a distant gate-way luminous with rays of glory. Monk though he was, the artist distributed his rewards and punishments with singular impartiality; for many a friar,

and even bishop, meets our gaze in his assembly of the wicked. The other picture, usually placed upon an easel beside it, is the "Descent of Christ into Hades." This cannot boast of beauty, but is very interesting and grotesque. Hades, or "Limbus," as it was then called, is a dark, rocky cave. Christ, bearing the banner of the cross, has burst open its heavy door; in fact, the door has literally fallen down, and a howling devil lies under it, crushed perfectly flat. Rejoicing souls rush to greet the Redeemer, and Adam seizes him by the hand. In the corners of the cavern, or up among the black rocks, ugly little imps look on with disappointed rage.

A more beautiful and celebrated composition of Fra Angelico hangs at present in the Louvre. It is a "Coronation of the Virgin," a subject in which he particularly delighted. But of all his Coronations this is the gem. August Schlegel, the German critic, has written a whole volume in its honor. An enthroned Saviour sets a diadem upon the head of the Madonna, who bends meekly forward. A chorus of twelve angels play their harps, viols, and other instruments, in harmonious concert; below them a crowd of holy figures adoringly behold the scene, and several lovely saints, among them St. Catharine with her wheel, St. Agnes with her lamb, and St. Cecilia crowned with roses, kneel around. Seldom shall we find a picture which can give more pleasure than this rich and varied piece. So clear and brilliant, yet so soft in color, its sweet, serene faces full of joy and calm, we may still say of it what Vasari wrote, more than three hundred years ago, when he declared himself convinced that those blessed spirits could look no otherwise in heaven itself.

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Thus praying and painting, the course of Fra Angelico's cloister-life flowed on most tranquilly for nearly forty years. But his fame had reached to Rome, and in 1446 the then reigning pope desired his presence at the Vatican, where he decorated a chapel with frescoes from the histories of Saints Lawrence and Stephen. This is his only work now existing in that city, except three small pictures ascribed to him in the Corsini Gallery. During a short stay at Orvieto, he began a "Last Judgment" in the cathedral, which was afterward finished by Luca Signorelli. The purity and elevation of his nature so excited the admiration of the pope that he offered him the archbishopric of Florence as soon as it became vacant; but Angelico refused, saying that he did not feel himself capable of ruling men, and requested that another might be appointed. He died in Rome, in 1455, at the age of sixty-eight, and is buried in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. On the simple slab which serves as his monument is a Latin inscription which has been thus translated:

"It is no honor to be like another Apelles, but rather, O Christ, that I gave all my gains to Thy poor. One was a work for earth, the other for heaven. A city, the flower of Etruria, bare me, John!"