y a larger and a grander manner. The progressive
forces of the modern style found their channels outside him. This again is
true of Francesco Raibolini, surnamed Francia from his master in the
goldsmith's craft. Francia is known to Englishmen as one of the most
sincerely pious of Christian painters by his incomparable picture of the
"Dead Christ" in our National Gallery. The spirituality that renders Fra
Angelico unintelligible to minds less ecstatically tempered than his own,
is not found in such excess in Francia, nor does his work suffer from the
insipidity of Perugino's affectation. Deep religious feeling is combined
with physical beauty of the purest type in a masterpiece of tranquil
grace. A greater degree of _naivete_ and naturalness compensates for the
inferiority of Francia's to Perugino's supremely perfect handling. This is
true of Francia's numerous pictures at Bologna; where indeed, in order to
be rightly known, he should be studied by all lovers of the _quattrocento_
style in its most delightful moments[226]. For mastery over oil painting
and for charm of colour Francia challenges comparison with what is best in
Perugino, though he did not quite attain the same technical excellence.

One more painter must delay us yet awhile within the limits of the
fifteenth century. Bartolommeo di Paolo del Fattorino, better known as
Baccio della Porta or Fra Bartolommeo, forms at Florence the connecting
link between the artists of the earlier Renaissance and the golden
age[227]. By chronological reckoning he is nearly a quarter of a century
later than Lionardo da Vinci, and is the exact contemporary of Michael
Angelo. As an artist, he has thoroughly outgrown the _quattrocento_ style,
and falls short only by a little of the greatest. In assigning him a place
among the predecessors and precursors of the full Renaissance, I am
therefore influenced rather by the range of subjects he selected, and by
the character of his genius, than by calculations of time or estimate of
ability.

Fra Bartolommeo was sent, when nine years old, into the workshop of Cosimo
Rosselli, where he began his artist's life by colour-grinding, sweeping
out the shop, and errand-running. It was in Cosimo's _bottega_ that he
made acquaintance with Mariotto Albertinelli, who became his intimate
friend and fellow-worker. In spite of marked differences of character,
disagreements upon the fundamental matters of politics and religion, and
not unfrequent quarr