Volltext Seite (XML)
102 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Chap. Y. proved that Sienna was ever visited by him. 1 Gentile still inhabited Florence in 1425. An inscription, printed by many authors, long authenticated a Virgin and child attended by saints, the centre of which has disappeared from the church of S. Niccolo di la d’Arno. 2 It was ordered by one of the family of Quaratesi, 3 and extorted from Vasari an opinion that of all things he had seen by Gentile, that was the best, not only because the Virgin and saints were well done, but because the predella, 4 with incidents from the life of S. Nicholas, could not have been better or neater. The side panels of this votive piece, are still at S. Niccolo, tilled with a pretty and graceful Magdalen in profile; a S. Nicholas, on whose cope scenes from the Passion are given with exquisite minuteness; a fine S. George, and a Baptist more in the old Siennese antique stylo; the whole ornamented with profusion, flat and fused in tone, and with a rosy flesh tint shadowed in cool grey. 5 But this was not a solitary commission undertaken for patrons having family chapels in S. Niccolo. A panel, lately discovered in that church, is now in the sacristy. It represents, the Eternal, surrounded by a glory of cherubim of Umbrian type, sending down the dove of the Holy Ghost to the Virgin and Christ, both of whom kneel on a rainbow spanning a golden heaven lighted by a sun in relief. The resurrection of Lazarus, in the foreground of a landscape, and S. Louis of Toulouse form the subjects of one side, whilst on the 1 The comm, of Vassari do not believe that Gentile laboured at S. Giov. of Sienna (IV. 16g. 3). The Sienna guide by Falusehi, 12°. 1784. pag. 229, notices the tra dition of the existence of a picture by Gentile da Fabriano, in S. Cris- toforo of Sienna. 2 The inscription is given as fol lows by Richa (Chiese; X. 270): “Opus Gentilis de Fabriano 1425, mense Maii.” 3 Yas. IV. 153. 4 Not to be found at this day. 5 In the gables of these panels are figures of canonized friars be tween angels. Part of the predella is said to have been preserved by the heirs of the late Tommaso Puc cini of Pistoia (Vas. com. IV. 153. 4), but all that we have seen there in the shape of incidents from the legend of S. Nicholas, are two pa nels of another period and school from those of Gentile.