supported by slender pillars in which a table is laid, at the head of which, to the right, sits Eaineri in the act of bene diction. Three guests are at the hoard which is served by three or four monks, one of whom is seen coming down a flight of steps with a dish in his hand. Two fowls hang on a nail in the landing. The architecture of the veranda and of the convent on which it leans, is carefully executed; and the forms are made out with sharpness and precision. All the knowledge of perspective attained in Antonio’s time is represented in the buildings of the foreground and in the distant edifices of Pisa. The science is not as yet ma tured, the true horizon is unascertained, yet the converging lines make as near an approach to the truth as could be expected at a period still distant from that in which Paolo Uccelli strove to found the science upon a positive geome trical basis. The embarcation, landing, miracle and enter tainment of the saint are all episodes placed side by side within the compass of one painted frame. The next is devoted to the • incidents of Raineri’s death and his transfer to the cathedral of Pisa. The passion of grief is well rendered, as Vasari truly remarks, 1 by Antonio in the group on the extreme left which surrounds the corpse of the Saint. He lies at length in his pilgrim’s skin, completely visible to the spectator, except where a figure stoops over his right hand for the purpose of kissing it. On the opposite side, another of his followers applies his lips to the left hand, and about the head, a group of clergy and people is massed in natural attitudes and animated expression. A monk bending forward blows upon the coals of a censer, another holds the vase with holy water. Nearer the saint’s feet an aged friar is helped forward with difficulty by one of fewer years, and seems beyond measure desirous of gazing at the features of the departed. A little in front of him, a drop sical woman has been led by her mother to Raineri’s feet. Her hands are raised and she looks up, grief and wonder commingled in her face. She evidently breathes with dif ficulty. Her forms are handsome though swollen by disease, youthful, and in good contrast with the weatherbeaten and timeworn ones of her mother who stoops over her. The careful study and reproduction of nature in its singularity is excellent, and foreshadows the art of Masolino at Casti- glione and of Masaccio in the Brancacci chapel at Florence. Nor is Antonio’s attention confined to the rendering of living ‘ Vas. Vol. II. p. 174.
