They were, in my opinion, greater and keener observers, more learned and more skilful, even better painters than Angelico; but their heart was in their craft, they lived in the world, they often could not resist giving their Virgins fine-lady airs, they were hampered by earthly reminiscences, they could not rise in their work above the trammels of daily life; in short, they were and remained men.  They were admirable; they gave utterance to the promptings of ardent faith; but they had not had the specific culture which is practised only in the silence and peace of the cloister.  Hence they could not cross the threshold of the seraphic realm where roamed the guileless being who never opened his eyes, closed in prayer, excepting to paint—­the monk who had never looked out on the world, who had seen only within himself.

And what we know of his life is worthy of this work.  He was a humble and tender recluse, who always prayed or ever he took up his brush, and could not draw the Crucifixion without melting into tears.

Through the veil of his tears his angelic vision poured itself out in the light of ecstasy, and he created beings that had but the semblance of human creatures, the earthly husk of our existence, beings whose souls soared already far from their prison of flesh.  Study his picture attentively, and see how the incomprehensible miracle works of such a sublimated state of mind.

The types chosen for the Apostles and Saints are, as we have said, quite ordinary.  But gaze firmly at the countenances of these men, and you will see how little they really take in of the scene before them.  Whatever attitude the painter may have given them, they are all absorbed into themselves; they behold the scene, not with the eyes of the body, but with the eyes of the soul.  Each is looking into himself.  Jesus dwells in them, and they can gaze on Him better in their inmost heart than on His throne.

It is the same with his female Saints.  I have said that they are insignificant looking, and it is true; but how their features, too, are transfigured and effaced under the Divine touch!  They are drowned in adoration, and spring buoyant, though motionless, to meet the Heavenly Spouse.  Only one remains but half escaped from her material shell:  Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who, with upturned eyes of a brackish green, is neither as simple nor as innocent as her sisters; she still sees the form of man in Christ; she still is a woman; she is, if one may so, the sin of the work.

Still, all these spiritual degrees clothed in human figures are but the accessories of this picture.  They are placed there, in the august assumption of gold and the chaste ascending scale of blue, to lead by a stair of pure joy to the sublime platform whereon we see the group of the Saviour and the Virgin.

And here, in the presence of the Mother and Son, the ecstatic painter overflows.  One could imagine that the Lord had merged into him, and transported him beyond the life of sense, love and chastity are so perfectly personified in the group above all the means of expression at the command of man.