, according to an old
description, but this has disappeared. The angels bearing the
medallion fly forward as if swimming through the air, alternately
bending the knee and thrusting out the leg. Their draperies flutter
about them in the swiftness of their motion. Such vigorous action is
an unusual motive in decorative art, and perhaps not altogether
appropriate. All four of the angels have delicate features and sweet
expressions.

[Illustration: TOMB OF THE CARDINAL OF PORTUGAL (ANTONIO ROSSELLINO)
_Church of San Miniato, Florence_]

The medallion is, artistically considered, the loveliest portion of
the whole work. The face of the Madonna is of that perfect oval which
artists choose for their ideal of beauty. We admire too the delicately
cut features, the waving hair, and the shapely hands. Both she and the
child look down from their high frame, smiling upon those who may
stand on the pavement below. The child raises his hand in a gesture of
benediction, the three fingers extended as a sign of the trinity.

It is not an easy problem to fit the compositional lines of a group
into a circular frame. Rossellino solved it very prettily by outlining
the figures in a diamond-shaped diagram. You may easily trace the four
sides, drawing one line from the Madonna's head along her right
shoulder, another from her elbow to the finger tip, a third from the
child's toes to his left elbow, a fourth from his elbow to the top of
the mother's veil.

It will be noticed that in the whole decorative scheme of the monument
there is nothing to suggest the idea of mourning. There is here no
sense of gloom in the presence of death. The rejoicing of the angels,
the smile of the mother and child, and the peaceful sleep of the
cardinal, all express the Christian hope of immortality beyond the
grave.

The sentiment is particularly appropriate to the character of the man
whose memory is honored here. The Florentine writer Vespasiano
Bisticci described him as being "of a most amiable nature, a pattern
of humanity, and an abundant fountain of good, through God, to the
poor.... He lived in the flesh as if he were free from it, rather the
life of an angel than a man, and his death was holy as his life."[52]

Allowing something for the extravagance of speech which was the
fashion of that time, we may still believe that the Cardinal of
Portugal was a man whose character was singularly pure in an age when
good men were none too common. Of the sculp