FOOTNOTES: 

[121] Alberti, Opere Volgari (Firenze, 1847), vol. iv. p. 75.

[122] Mr. Berenson calls it a Portrait of Perugino, though for long it passed as a Portrait of Verrocchio by Lorenzo di Credi.

[123] For a full account of the Umbrian school see my Cities of Umbria.

[124] In 1416, Borgo S. Sepolcro was not just within the borders of Tuscany of course, as it is to-day, but just without:  it was part of the Papal State till Eugenius IV sold it to Florence.

[125] Mr. Berenson calls the picture An Allegory of the Tree of Life, and adds that it is certainly a late work of Giovanni.

[126] Of the Flemish, Dutch, German, and French pictures here I intend to say no more than to name a few among them.  The most valuable foreign picture in Florence for the student of Italian art is Van der Goes’ (1425-82) great triptych (1525) of the Adoration of the Shepherds, with the Family of the donor Messer Portinari, agent of the Medici in Bruges.  In the same sala are two Memlings (703, 778), and a Roger van der Weyden (795).  Two Holbeins, the Richard Southwell (765), and Sir Thomas More (799), are in the German room; while Duerer’s noble and lovely Adoration of the Magi (1141) is still in the Tribuna, and his portrait of his Father (766) is with the other German pictures in the German room.  Some too eloquent works of Rubens hang apart, while here and there you may see a Vandyck—­Lord John and Lord Bernard Stuart (1523), for instance, or Jean de Montfort (1115), a little pensive and proud amid the splendour of Italy.

XXIV.  FLORENCE

THE PITTI GALLERY

During the last years of Cosimo de’ Medici, Luca Pitti, that rare old knight, sometime Gonfaloniere of Justice, thought to possess himself of the state of Florence, and to this end, besides creating a new Balia against the wishes of Cosimo, distributed, as it is said, some 20,000 ducats in one day, so that the whole city came after him in flocks, and not Cosimo, but he, was looked upon as the governor of Florence.  “So foolish was he in his own conceit, that he began two stately and magnificent houses,” Machiavelli tells us, “one in Florence, the other at Rusciano, not more than a mile away:  but that in Florence was greater and more splendid than the house of any other private citizen whatsoever.  To finish this latter, he baulked no extraordinary way, for not only the citizens and better sort presented him and furnished him with what was necessary for it, but the common people gave him all of their assistance; besides, all that were banished or guilty of murder, felony, or any other thing which exposed them to punishment, had sanctuary at that house provided they would give him their labour.”