Meanwhile, what was truly great and noble in Renaissance Italy, found its proper home in Florence; where the spirit of freedom, if only as an idea, still ruled; where the populace was still capable of being stirred to super-sensual enthusiasm; and where the flame of the modern intellect burned with its purest, whitest lustre.

FOOTNOTES: 

[161] See Vol.  I., Age of the Despots, p. 12.

[162] See Vol.  II., Revival of Learning, pp. 122-129.

[163] His real name was Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, of the family of Scheggia.  Masaccio means in Tuscan, “Great hulking Tom,” just as Masolino, his supposed master and fellow-worker, means “Pretty little Tom.”  Masolino was Tommaso di Cristofero Fini, born in 1384 in S. Croce.  It is now thought that we have but little of his authentic work except the frescoes at Castiglione di Olona, near Milan.  Masaccio was born at San Giovanni, in the upper valley of the Arno, in 1402.  He died at Borne in 1429.

[164] His family name was Doni.  He was born about 1396, and died at the age of about 73.  He got his name Uccello from his partiality for painting birds, it is said.

[165] See above, Chapter III, Andrea Verocchio, for what has been said about Verocchio’s “David.”

[166] A drawing made in red chalk for this “Dream of Constantine” has been published in facsimile by Ottley, in his Italian School of Design.  He wrongly attributes it, however, to Giorgione, and calls it a “Subject Unknown.”

[167] The one in S. Francesco at Rimini, the other in the Uffizzi.

[168] Two angels have recently been published by the Arundel Society who have also copied Melozzo’s wall-painting of Sixtus IV. in the Vatican.  It is probable that the picture in the Royal Collection at Windsor, of Duke Frederick of Urbino listening to the lecture of a Humanist, is also a work of Melozzo’s, much spoiled by re-painting.  See Vol.  II., Revival of Learning, p. 220.

[169] Muratori, vol. xxiv. 1181.

[170] For Ciriac of Ancona, see Vol.  II., Revival of Learning, p. 113.

[171] The services rendered by Squarcione to art have been thoroughly discussed by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Painting in North Italy, vol. i. chap. 2.  I cannot but think that they underrate the importance of his school.

[172] He was born between 1360 and 1370, and he settled at Florence about 1422, where he opened a bottega in S. Trinita.  In 1423 he painted his masterpiece, the “Adoration of the Magi,” now exhibited in the Florentine Academy of Arts.

[173] See, for instance, the valuable portraits of the Medicean family with Picino and Poliziano, in the fresco of the “Tower of Babel” at Pisa.

[174] L’Art Chretien, vol. ii. p. 397.

[175] The same remark might be made about the Venetian Bonifazio.  It is remarkable that the “Adoration of the Magi” was always a favourite subject with painters of this calibre.