and
magic church, a casquet made splendid not with jewels but with beauty,
where the miracle picture of Madonna--not that ancient and wonderful
picture by Ugolino da Siena, but a work, it is said, of Bernardo
Daddi--glows under the lamps. On the west side, in front of the altar,
Orcagna has carved the Marriage of the Virgin and the Annunciation; on
the south, the Nativity of Our Lord and the Adoration of the Magi; on
the north, the Presentation of the Virgin and her Birth; and on the
east, the Purification and the Annunciation of her Death. And above
these last, in a panel of great beauty, he has carved the Death of the
Virgin, where, among the Apostles crowding round her bed, while St.
Thomas--or is it St. John?--passionately kisses her feet, Jesus Himself
stands with her soul in His arms, that little Child which had first
entered the kingdom of heaven. Above this sorrowful scene you may see
the Glory and Assumption of Our Lady in a mandorla glory, upheld by six
angels, while St. Thomas kneels below, stretching out his arms, assured
at last. It is, as it were, the prototype of the Madonna della Cintola,
that exquisite and lovely relief which Nanni di Banco carved later for
the north gate of the Duomo, only here all the sweetness that Nanni has
seen and expressed seems to be lost in a sort of solemnity and strength.

Between these panels Orcagna has set the virtues Theological and
Cardinal, little figures of much force and beauty; and at the corners he
has carved angels bearing palms and lilies. Some who have seen this
shrine so loaded with ornament, so like some difficult and complicated
canticle, have gone away disappointed. Remembering the strength and
significance of Orcagna's work in fresco, they have perhaps looked for
some more simple thing, and indeed for a less rhetorical praise. Yet I
think it is rather the fault of Or San Michele than of the shrine
itself, that it does not certainly vanquish any possible objection and
assure us at once of its perfection and beauty. If it could be seen in
the beautiful spacious transept of S. Croce, or even in Santo Spirito
across Arno, that sense as of something elaborate and complicated would
perhaps not be felt; but here in Or San Michele one seems to have come
upon a priceless treasure in a cave.

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Rossetti's translation of Guido Cavalcanti's Sonnet written in
exile.

[94] Franceschini, however, in his record (_L'Oratorio di S. Michele in
Orto in Firen