his deficiency in the finer sense of beauty, the absence of poetic inspiration or feeling in his work, the commonplaceness of his colour, and his wearisome reiteration of calculated effects.  He never arrests attention by sallies of originality, or charms us by the delicacies of suggestive fancy.  He is always at the level of his own achievement, so that in the end we are as tired with able Ghirlandajo as the men of Athens with just Aristides.  Who, however, but Ghirlandajo could have composed the frescoes of “S.  Fina” at S. Gemignano, the fresco of the “Death of S. Francis” in S. Trinita at Florence, or that again of the “Birth of the Virgin” in S. Maria Novella?  There is something irritating in pure common sense imported into art, and Ghirlandajo’s masterpieces are the apotheosis of that quality.  How correct, how judicious, how sagacious, how mathematically ordered! we exclaim; but we gaze without emotion, and we turn away without regret.  It does not vex us to read how Ghirlandajo used to scold his prentices for neglecting trivial orders that would fill his purse with money.  Similar traits of character pain us with a sense of impropriety in Perugino.  They harmonise with all we feel about the work of Ghirlandajo.  It is bitter mortification to know that Michael Angelo never found space or time sufficient for his vast designs in sculpture.  It is a positive relief to think that Ghirlandajo sighed in vain to have the circuit of the walls of Florence given him to paint.  How he would have covered them with compositions, stately, flowing, easy, sober, and incapable of stirring any feeling in the soul!

Though Ghirlandajo lacked almost every true poetic quality, he combined the art of distributing figures in a given space, with perspective, fair knowledge of the nude, and truth to nature, in greater perfection than any other single painter of the age he represents; and since these were precisely the gifts of that age to the great Renaissance masters, we accord to him the place of historical honour.  It should be added that, like almost all the artists of this epoch, he handled sacred and profane, ancient and modern, subjects in the same style, introducing contemporary customs and costumes.  His pictures are therefore valuable for their portraits and their illustration of Florentine life.  Fresco was his favourite vehicle; and in this preference he showed himself a true master of the school of Florence:  but he is said to have maintained that mosaic, as more durable, was superior to wall-painting.  This saying, if it be authentic, justifies our criticism of his cold achievement as a painter.