[A Wanderer in Florence by E. V. Lucas]@TWC D-Link bookA Wanderer in Florence CHAPTER XVI 13/37
What is generally considered the most important work in this room is the Last Judgment, which is certainly extraordinarily interesting, and in the hierarchy of heaven and the company of the blest Fra Angelico is in a very acceptable mood.
The benignant Christ Who divides the sheep and the goats; the healthy ripe-lipped Saints and Fathers who assist at the tribunal and have never a line of age or experience on their blooming cheeks; the monks and nuns, just risen from their graves, who embrace each other in the meads of paradise with such fervour--these have much of the charm of little flowers.
But in delineating the damned the painter is in strange country.
It was a subject of which he knew nothing, and the introduction among them of monks of the rival order of S.Francis is mere party politics and a blot. There are two other rooms here, but Fra Angelico spoils us for them.
Four panels by another Frate, but less radiant, Lippo Lippi, are remarkable, particularly the figure of the Virgin in the Annunciation; and there is a curious series of scenes entitled "L'Albero della Croce," by an Ignoto of the fourteenth century, with a Christ crucified in the midst and all Scripture in medallions around him, the tragedy of Adam and Eve at the foot (mutilated by some chaste pedant) being very quaint.
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