18/37 For the most part they painted altar-pieces, these early craftsmen, the Church being the principal patron of art. These works are many of them faded and so elementary as to have but an antiquarian interest; but think of the excitement in those days when the picture was at last ready, and, gay in its gold, was erected in the chapel! Among the purely ecclesiastical works No. 137, an Annunciation by Giovanni del Biondo (second half of the fourteenth century), is light and cheerful, and No. 142, the Crowning of the Virgin, by Rosello di Jacopo Franchi (1376-1456), has some delightful details and is everywhere joyous, with a charming green pattern in it. |