kely to be in such a wintry landscape at
all. On the ground are violets. The whole work is grave, austere,
cool, and as different as can be from the Tuscan spirit; yet it is
said to have had a deep influence on the painters of the time and
must have drawn throngs to the Hospital to see it.

The other Flemish and German pictures in the room are all remarkable
and all warmer in tone. No. 906, an unknown work, is perhaps the
finest: a Crucifixion, which might have borrowed its richness from
the Carpaccio, we saw in the Venetian room. There is a fine Adoration
of the Magi, by Gerard David (1460-1523); an unknown portrait of
Pierantonio Baroncelli and his wife, with a lovely landscape; a jewel
of paint by Hans Memling (1425-1492)--No. 703--the Madonna Enthroned;
a masterpiece of drawing by Duerer, "Calvary"; an austere and poignant
Transportation of Christ to the Sepulchre, by Roger van der Weyden
(1400-1464); and several very beautiful portraits by Memling, notably
Nos. 769 and 780 with their lovely evening light. Memling, indeed,
I never liked better than here. Other fine pictures are a Spanish
prince by Lucas van Leyden; an old Dutch scholar by an artist unknown,
No. 784; and a young husband and wife by Joost van Cleef the Elder,
and a Breughel the Elder, like an old Crome--a beauty--No. 928. The
room is interesting both for itself and also as showing how the
Flemish brushes were working at the time that so many of the great
Italians were engaged on similar themes.

After the cool, self-contained, scientific work of these northerners
it is a change to enter the Sala di Rubens and find that luxuriant
giant--their compatriot, but how different!--once more. In the Uffizi,
Rubens seems more foreign, far, than any one, so fleshly pagan is
he. In Antwerp Cathedral his "Descent from the Cross," although
its bravura is, as always with him, more noticeable than its piety,
might be called a religious picture, but I doubt if even that would
seem so here. At any rate his Uffizi works are all secular, while
his "Holy Family" in the Pitti is merely domestic and robust. His
Florentine masterpieces are the two Henri IV pictures in this room,
"Henri IV at Ivry," magnificent if not war, and "Henri's entry into
Paris after Ivry," with its confusing muddle of naked warriors and
spears. Only Rubens could have painted these spirited, impossible,
glorious things, which for all their greatness send one's thoughts
back longingly to the portrai