ndaio to make the frescoes in the choir of
S. Maria Novella. (I ought, however, to state that Miss Cruttwell,
in her monograph on Verrocchio, questions both the subject and the
artist.) Close by we have two more works by Verrocchio--No. 180, a
marble relief of the Madonna and Child, the Madonna's dress fastened
by the prettiest of brooches, and She herself possessing a dainty sad
head and the long fingers that Verrocchio so favoured, which we find
again in the famous "Gentildonna" (No. 181) next it--that Florentine
lady with flowers in her bosom, whose contours are so exquisite and
who has such pretty shoulders.

Near by is the little eager S. John the Baptist as a boy by Antonio
Rossellino (1427-1478), and on the next wall the same sculptor's
circular relief of the Madonna adoring, in a border of cherubs.
In the middle is the masterpiece of Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570): a
Bacchus, so strangely like a genuine antique, full of Greek lightness
and grace. And then we come back to the wall in which the door is,
and find more works from the delicate hand of Mino da Fiesole, whom
we in London are fortunate in being able to study as near home as at
the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of Mino I have said more both at the
Badia and at Fiesole. But here I might remark again that he was born
in 1431 and died in 1484, and was the favourite pupil of Desiderio
da Settignano, who was in his turn the favourite pupil of Donatello.

In the little church of S. Ambrogio we have seen a tablet to the
memory of Mino, who lies there, not far from the grave of Verrocchio,
whom he most nearly approached in feeling, although their ideal type of
woman differed in everything save the slenderness of the fingers. The
Bargello has both busts and reliefs by him, all distinguished and
sensitive and marked by Mino's profound refinement. The Madonna and
Child in No. 232 are peculiarly beautiful and notable both for high
relief and shallow relief, and the Child in No. 193 is even more
charming. For delicacy and vivacity in marble portraiture it would
be impossible to surpass the head of Rinaldo della Luna; and the two
Medicis are wonderfully real. Everything in Mino's work is thoughtful
and exquisite, while the unusual type of face which so attracted him
gives him freshness too.

This room and that next it illustrate the wealth of fine sculptors
which Florence had in the fifteenth century, for the works by the
unknown hands are in some cases hardly less bea