Benozzo Gozzoli, the pupil of Fra Angelico, but in no sense the continuator of his tradition, exhibits the blending of several styles by a genius of less creative than assimilative force.  That he was keenly interested in the problems of perspective and foreshortening, and that none of the knowledge collected by his fellow-workers had escaped him, is sufficiently proved by his frescoes at Pisa.  His compositions are rich in architectural details, not always chosen with pure taste, but painted with an almost infantine delight in the magnificence of buildings.  Quaint birds and beasts and reptiles crowd his landscapes; while his imagination runs riot in rocks and rivers, trees of all variety, and rustic incidents adopted from real life.  At the same time he felt an enjoyment like that of Gentile da Fabriano in depicting the pomp and circumstance of pageantry, and no Florentine of the fifteenth century was more fond of assembling the personages of contemporary history in groups.[173] Thus he showed himself sensitive to the chief influences of the earlier Renaissance, and combined the scientific and naturalistic tendencies of his age in a manner not devoid of native poetry.  What he lacked was depth of feeling, the sense of noble form, the originative force of a great mind.  His poetry of invention, though copious and varied, owed its charm to the unstudied grace of improvisation, and he often undertook subjects where his idyllic rather than dramatic genius failed to sustain him.  It is difficult, for instance, to comprehend how M. Rio could devote two pages to Gozzoli’s “Destruction of Sodom,” so comparatively unimpressive in spite of its aggregated incidents, when he passes by the “Fulminati” of Signorelli, so tragic in its terrible simplicity, with a word.[174]

This painter’s marvellous rapidity of execution enabled him to produce an almost countless series of decorative works.  The best of these are the frescoes of the Pisan Campo Santo, of the Riccardi Palace of Florence, of San Gemignano, and of Montefalco.  It has been well said of Gozzoli that, though he attempted grand subjects on a large scale, he could not rise above the limitations of a style better adapted to the decoration of cassoni than to fresco.[175] Yet within the range of his own powers there are few more fascinating painters.  His feeling for fresh nature—­for hunters in the woods at night or dawn, for vintage-gatherers among their grapes, for festival troops of cavaliers and pages, and for the marriage-dances of young men and maidens—­yields a delightful gladness to compositions lacking the simplicity of Giotto and the dignity of Masaccio.[176] No one knew better how to sketch the quarrels of little boys in their nursery, or the laughter of serving-women, or children carrying their books to school;[177] and when the idyllic genius of the man was applied to graver themes, his fancy supplied him with multitudes of angels waving rainbow-coloured wings above fair mortal faces.  Bevies of them nestle like pigeons on the penthouse of the hut of Bethlehem, or crowd together round the infant Christ.[178]