picture is too powerful
to be described. It is in every detail grandiose: masculine energy being
combined with incomparable grace, religious feeling with athletic
dignity, and luxuriance of ornamentation with severe gravity of
composition. It is worth comparing this portrait of Francesco Gonzaga
with his bronze medal, just as Piero della Francesco's picture of
Sigismondo Malatesta should be compared with Pisanello's medallion.

[205] Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, p. 212.

[206] Nothing is known about Mantegna's stay in Florence. He went to meet
the Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Bologna. This Cardinal, a great amateur
of music and connoisseur in relics of antiquity, came to Mantua in
August, 1472, where the "Orfeo" of Messer Angelo Poliziano was produced
for his amusement.

[207] That he could conceive a stern and tragic subject, with all the
passion it required, is, however, proved not only by the frescoes at
Orvieto, but also by the powerful oil-painting of the "Crucifixion" at
Borgo San Sepolcro.

[208] This story has been used for verse in a way to heighten its
romantic colouring. Such as the lines are, I subjoin them for the sake of
their attempt to emphasize and illustrate Renaissance feeling:--

"Vasari tells that Luca Signorelli,
The morning star of Michael Angelo,
Had but one son, a youth of seventeen summers,
Who died. That day the master at his easel
Wielded the liberal brush wherewith he painted
At Orvieto, on the Duomo's walls,
Stern forms of Death and Heaven and Hell and Judgment.
Then came they to him, cried: 'Thy son is dead,
Slain in a duel: but the bloom of life
Yet lingers round red lips and downy cheek.'
Luca spoke not, but listened. Next they bore
His dead son to the silent painting-room,
And left on tip toe son and sire alone.
Still Luca spoke and groaned not; but he raised
The wonderful dead youth, and smoothed his hair,
Washed his red wounds, and laid him on a bed,
Naked and beautiful, where rosy curtains
Shed a soft glimmer of uncertain splendour
Life-like upon the marble limbs below.
Then Luca seized his palette: hour by hour
Silence was in the room; none durst approach:
Morn wore to noon, and noon to eve, when shyly
A little maid peeped in and saw the painter
Painting his dead son with unerring hand-stroke,
Firm and dry-eyed before the lordly canvas."

[209] See the article on O