as well as painter. He furnished the plans for the Ponte
Vecchio and Campanile, Florence, after Giotto's death. He was possessed
of great activity and industry. He is supposed to have died in 1366, and
rests in the scene of his labours, since he was buried in the cloisters
of S. Croce.

Fra Filippo, 1412-1469, a Carmelite friar. The romantic, scandalous
life, including his slavery in Barbary, attributed to him by Vasari, the
great biographer of the early Italian painters, has received no
corroboration from modern researches. It is rather refuted. He always
signed his pictures 'Frater Filippus,' and his death is entered in the
register of the Carmine convent as that of 'Frater Filippus.' In all
probability he was from first to last a monk, and not a disreputable
one. He describes himself as the poorest friar in Florence, with six
marriageable nieces dependent on him, and he is said to have been
involved in debt.

His colouring was 'golden and broad,' in anticipation of that of Titian;
his draperies were fine. He was wanting in the ideal, but full of human
feeling, which was apt to get rude and boisterous; his angels were 'like
great high-spirited boys.' Withal, his style of composition was stately.
Among the best examples of his work are scenes from the life of St John
the Baptist in frescoes in the choir of the Duomo at Prato. His panel
pictures are rather numerous. There are two lunette[49] pictures by Fra
Filippo in the National Gallery.

Benozzo Gozzoli, 1424-1496, a scholar of Fra Angelico, but resembling
him only in light and cheerful colouring. He is said to have been the
first Italian painter smitten with the beauty of the natural world. He
was the first to create rich landscape backgrounds, and he enlivened
his landscapes with animals. He displayed a fine fancy for architectural
effects, introducing into his pictures open porticoes, arcades,
balconies, and galleries. He liked to have subsidiary groups and circles
of spectators about his principal figures. In these groups he introduced
portraits of his contemporaries, true to nature and full of expression
and delicate feeling. His best work is in the Campo Santo, Pisa, scenes
from the history of the Old Testament, ranging from Noah to the Queen of
Sheba. The Pisans were so pleased with his work as to present him, in
1478, with a sarcophagus intended to contain his remains when they
should be deposited in the Campo Santo. He survived the gift eighteen
years, d