atment of drapery, makes it one of the most musical
of pictures ever painted.

Fra Filippo was not so successful in the choir of the cathedral at
Spoleto, where he undertook; to paint scenes from the life of the Virgin.
Yet those who have not examined these frescoes, ruinous in their decay and
spoiled by stupid restoration, can form no just notion of the latent
capacity of this great master. The whole of the half-dome above the
tribune is filled with, a "Coronation of Madonna." A circular rainbow
surrounds both her and Christ. She is kneeling with fiery rays around her,
glorified by her assumption into heaven. Christ is enthroned, and at His
side stands a seat prepared for His mother, as soon as the crown that He
is placing on her head shall have made her Queen. From the outer courts of
heaven, thronged with multitudes of celestial beings, angels are crowding
in, breaking the lines of the prismatic aureole, as though the ardour of
their joy could scarcely be repressed; while the everlasting light of God
sheds radiance from above, and far below, lies earth with diminished sun
and moon. The boldness of conception in this singular fresco reveals a
genius capable of grappling with such problems as Tintoretto solved. Fra
Filippo died at Spoleto, and left his work unfinished, to the care of his
assistant, the Fra Diamante. Over his tomb Lorenzo de' Medici caused a
monument to be erected, and Poliziano wrote Latin couplets to commemorate
the fame of a painter highly prized by his patrons.

The space devoted in these pages to Fra Lippo Lippi is justified not only
by the excellence of his own work, but also by the influence he exercised
over two of the best Florentine painters of the fifteenth century. Whether
Filippino Lippi was in truth his son by Lucrezia Buti, a novice he is said
to have carried from her cloister in Prato, has been called in question
by recent critics; but they adduce no positive arguments for discrediting
the story of Vasari.[181] There can, however, be no doubt that to the
Frate, whether he was his father or only his teacher, Filippino owed his
style. His greatest works were painted in continuation of Masaccio's
frescoes in the Carmine at Florence. It is the best warrant of their
excellence that we feel them worthy to hold the place they do, and that
Raphael transferred one of their motives, the figure of S. Paul addressing
S. Peter in prison, to his cartoon of "Mars' Hill." That he was not so
accomplished