he picture
as a whole has grown rather dingy. By the window is a Velasquez, the
first we have seen in Florence, a little Philip IV on his prancing
steed, rather too small for its subject, but very interesting here
among the Italians.

In the next large room--the Sala di Saturno--we come again to
Raphael, who is indeed the chief master of the Pitti, his exquisite
"Madonna del Granduca" being just to the left of the door. Here we
have the simplest colouring and perfect sweetness, and such serenity
of mastery as must be the despair of the copyists, who, however,
never cease attempting it. The only defect is a little clumsiness
in the Madonna's hand. The picture was lost for two centuries and it
then changed owners for twelve crowns, the seller being a poor woman
and the buyer a bookseller. The bookseller found a ready purchaser
in the director of the Grand Duke Ferdinand III's gallery, and the
Grand Duke so esteemed it that he carried it with him on all his
journeys, just as Sir George Beaumont, the English connoisseur, never
travelled without a favourite Claude. Hence its name. Another Andrea
del Sarto, the "Disputa sulla Trinita," No. 172, is close by, nobly
drawn but again not of his absolute best, and then five more Raphaels
or putative Raphaels--No. 171, Tommaso Inghirami; No. 61, Angelo Doni,
the collector and the friend of artists, for whom Michelangelo painted
his "Holy Family" in the Uffizi; No. 59, Maddalena Doni; and above
all No. 174, "The Vision of Ezekiel," that little great picture,
so strong and spirited, and--to coin a word--Sixtinish. All these,
I may say, are questioned by experts; but some very fine hand is
to be seen in them any way. Over the "Ezekiel" is still another,
No. 165, the "Madonna detta del Baldacchino," which is so much better
in the photographs. Next this group--No. 164--we find Raphael's
friend Perugino with an Entombment, but it lacks his divine glow;
and above it a soft and mellow and easy Andrea del Sarto, No. 163,
which ought to be in a church rather than here. A better Perugino
is No. 42, which has all his sweetness, but to call it the Magdalen
is surely wrong; and close by it a rather formal Fra Bartolommeo,
No. 159, "Gesu Resuscitato," from the church of SS. Annunziata, in
which once again the babies who hold the circular landscape are the
best part. After another doubtful Raphael--the sly Cardinal Divizio
da Bibbiena, No. 158--let us look at an unquestioned one, No. 151,
the mos