is proper enough, of
course, but it serves to render the Pitti a difficult gallery rightly
to study pictures in.

In the first chapter on the Uffizi I have said how simple it is,
in the Pitti, to name the best picture of all, and how difficult in
most galleries. But the Pitti has one particular jewel which throws
everything into the background: the work not of a Florentine but of a
Venetian: "The Concert" of Giorgione, which stands on an easel in the
Sala di Marte. [9] It is true that modern criticism has doubted the
lightness of the ascription, and many critics, whose one idea seems
to be to deprive Giorgione of any pictures at all, leaving him but
a glorious name without anything to account for it, call it an early
Titian; but this need not trouble us. There the picture is, and never
do I think to see anything more satisfying. Piece by piece, it is
not more than fine rich painting, but as a whole it is impressive and
mysterious and enchanting. Pater compares the effect of it to music;
and he is right.

The Sala dell' Iliade (the name of each room refers always to the
ceiling painting, which, however, one quite easily forgets to look at)
is chiefly notable for the Raphael just inside the door: "La Donna
Gravida," No. 229, one of his more realistic works, with bolder colour
than usual and harder treatment; rather like the picture that has
been made its pendant, No. 224, an "Incognita" by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio,
very firmly painted, but harder still. Between them is the first of the
many Pitti Andrea del Sartos: No. 225, an "Assumption of the Madonna,"
opposite a similar work from the same brush, neither containing quite
the finest traits of this artist. But the youth with outstretched hand
at the tomb is nobly done. No. 265, "Principe Mathias de' Medici,"
is a good bold Sustermans, but No. 190, on the opposite wall, is a
far better--a most charming work representing the Crown Prince of
Denmark, son of Frederick III. Justus Sustermans, who has so many
portraits here and elsewhere in Florence, was a Belgian, born in 1597,
who settled in Florence as a portrait painter to Cosimo III. Van Dyck
greatly admired his work and painted him. He died at Florence in 1681.

No. 208, a "Virgin Enthroned," by Fra Bartolommeo, is from S. Marco,
and it had better have been painted on the wall there, like the Fra
Angelicos, and then the convent would have it still. The Child is very
attractive, as almost always in this artist's work, but t