The Sala dell’ Iliade (the name of each room refers always to the ceiling painting, which, however, one quite easily forgets to look at) is chiefly notable for the Raphael just inside the door:  “La Donna Gravida,” No. 229, one of his more realistic works, with bolder colour than usual and harder treatment; rather like the picture that has been made its pendant, No. 224, an “Incognita” by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, very firmly painted, but harder still.  Between them is the first of the many Pitti Andrea del Sartos:  No. 225, an “Assumption of the Madonna,” opposite a similar work from the same brush, neither containing quite the finest traits of this artist.  But the youth with outstretched hand at the tomb is nobly done.  No. 265, “Principe Mathias de’ Medici,” is a good bold Sustermans, but No. 190, on the opposite wall, is a far better—­a most charming work representing the Crown Prince of Denmark, son of Frederick III.  Justus Sustermans, who has so many portraits here and elsewhere in Florence, was a Belgian, born in 1597, who settled in Florence as a portrait painter to Cosimo III.  Van Dyck greatly admired his work and painted him.  He died at Florence in 1681.

No. 208, a “Virgin Enthroned,” by Fra Bartolommeo, is from S. Marco, and it had better have been painted on the wall there, like the Fra Angelicos, and then the convent would have it still.  The Child is very attractive, as almost always in this artist’s work, but the 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,