el, in the Santa Croce; and the fourth, turning his back, is David
Ghirlandajo. These real personages are so managed, that, while they
are not themselves actors, they do not interfere with the main action,
but rather embellish and illustrate it, like the chorus in a Greek
tragedy. Every single figure in this fine fresco is a study for manly
character, dignified attitude, and easy grand drapery.

In the same scene by Albert Durer,[1] the high priest, standing behind
a table, rejects the offering of the lamb, and his attendant pushes
away the doves. Joachim makes a gesture of despair, and several
persons who bring offerings look at him with disdain or with sympathy.

[Footnote 1: In the set of wood-cuts of the Life of the Virgin.]

The same scene by Luini (Milan, Brera) is conceived with much pathetic
as well as dramatic effect. But as I have said enough to reader the
subject easily recognized, we proceed.

* * * * *

2. "Joachim herding his sheep on the mountain, and surrounded by his
shepherds, receives the message of the angel." This subject may so
nearly resemble the Annunciation to the Shepherds in St. Luke's Gospel,
that we must be careful to distinguish them, as, indeed, the best of
the old painters have done with great taste and feeling.

Is the fresco by Taddeo Gaddi (in the Baroncelli Chapel), Joachim
is seated on a rocky mountain, at the base of which his sheep are
feeding, and turns round to listen to the voice of the angel. In the
fresco by Giotto in the Arena at Padua, the treatment is nearly the
same.[1] In the series by Luini, a stream runs down the centre of
the picture: on one side is Joachim listening to the angel, on the
other, Anna is walking in her garden. This incident is omitted by
Ghirlandajo. In Albert Durer's composition, Joachim is seen in the
foreground kneeling, and looking up at an angel, who holds out in
both hands a sort of parchment roll looking like a diploma with seals
appended, and which we may suppose to contain the message from on
high (if it be not rather the emblem of the _sealed book_, so often
introduced, particularly by the German masters). A companion of
Joachim also looks up with amazement, and farther in the distance are
sheep and shepherds.

[Footnote 1: The subject will be found in the set of wood-cuts
published by the Arundel Society.]

The Annunciation to St. Anna may be easily mistaken for the
Annunciation to the Virgin Mary;--we m