_naive_ grace; and the
romantic and curious details of the legend have lent them so much of
interest, that, as Lord Lindsay says, "when standing on the spot one
really feels indisposed for criticism."[1]

[Footnote 1: M. Rio is more poetical. "Comme j'entendais raconter
cette legende pour la premiere fois, il me semblait que le tableau
reflechissait une partie de la poesie qu'elle renferme. Cet amour
d'outre mer mele aux aventures chevaleresques d'une croisade, cette
relique precieuse donnee pour dot a une pauvre fille, la devotion
des deux epoux pour ce gage revere de leur bonheur, leur depart
clandestin, leur navigation prospere avec des dauphins qui leur font
cortege a la surface des eaux, leur arrivee a Prato et les miracles
repetes qui, joints a une maladie mortelle, arracehrent enfin de la
bouche du moribond une declaration publique a la suite de laquelle
la ceinture sacree fut deposee dans la cathedrale, tout ce melange
de passion romanesque et de piete naive, avait efface pour moi les
imperfections techniques qui au raient pu frapper une observateur de
sang-froid."]

The exact date of the frescoes executed by Agnolo Gaddi is not known,
but, according to Vasari, he was called to Prato _after_ 1348. An
inscription in the chapel refers them to the year 1390, a date too
late to be relied on. The story of Michele di Prato I have never seen
elsewhere; but just as the vicinity of Cologne, the shrine of the
"Three Kings," had rendered the Adoration of the Magi one of the
popular themes in early German and Flemish art; so the vicinity of
Prato rendered the legend of St. Thomas a favourite theme of the
Florentine school, and introduced it wherever the influence of that
school had extended. The fine fresco by Mainardi, in the Baroncelli
Chapel, is an instance; and I must cite one yet finer, that by
Ghirlandajo in the choir of S. Maria-Novella: in this last-mentioned
example, the Virgin stands erect in star-bespangled drapery and
closely veiled.

We now proceed to other examples of the treatment of the Assumption.

3. Taddeo Bartoli, 1413. He has represented the moment in which the
soul is reunited to the body. Clothed in a starry robe she appears in
the very act and attitude of one rising up from a reclining position,
which is most beautifully expressed, as if she were partly lifted
up upon the expanded many-coloured wings of a cluster of angels, and
partly drawn up, as it were, by the attractive power of Christ, who