Chap. XIII. FRA BARTOLOMMEO DELLA PORTA. -155 on the foreground, uniting them by a circular chain of spectators in converse on the floor of the semidome. In rivalry with Raphael at times in bold foreshortening, he prodigally wasted his science in the reproduction of form and drapery, poising four lovely seraphs in flight un der the festoons of the dais. The whole is thrown upon the panel, as Vasari says, in so gallant a style as to leave the impression of a living scene. Yet, it is more by truthful transition of neutral light and shade than by colour that Fra Bartolommeo obtained effect, the tone being reduced almost to a monochrome by the use of lamp black; but here again the gallery is unfavorable to a work intended for a special place in a church; and the Marriage of the Pitti will not be seen to its best ad vantage till a niche is built expressly for it. On the same principles, and under the same fortunate combination of circumstances it was that the splendid “Conception”, which now adorns the Gallery of the Uffizi, was composed. With a versatility denied to all but a few, he formed another pyramidal arrangement of S. Anna in extasy on a plinth behind a beauteous Virgin watching the play of the infant Christ and S. John. He brought down the lines to the extreme foreground by the help of four standing and kneeling worshippers, giving symmetry to the distribution by a company of saints at each side, by a choir of infant angels and cherubs with instru ments, or singing from a book held aloft by their hands, and by two winged children at the foot of the throne. Had this grandiose creation been finished, it would have been the chef d’osuvre of Fra Bartolommeo. Having been left in its present condition, which is that of a mere rough draught on the panel, with the drawing and preparation in brown; it is but a sketch; yet masterly as one by Buonarotti. Its interest is great, as revealing the growth of such a piece from its embryo to the first stage of completion. In certain sheets at the Uffizi we find the studies of the nudes and their subsequent re petition in drapery, designed, we believe, from the lay
