CHAPTER XVIII.
S.Marco Andrea del Castagno--"The Last Supper"-- The stolen Madonna--Fra Angelico's frescoes--"Little Antony"-- The good archbishop--The Buonuomini--Savonarola--The death of Lorenzo the Magnificent--Pope Alexander VI--The Ordeal by Fire--The execution--The S.Marco cells--The cloister frescoes--Ghirlandaio's "Last Supper"-- Relics of old Florence--Pico and Politian--Piero di Cosimo--Andrea del Sarto.
From the Accademia it is but a step to S.Marco, across the Piazza, but it is well first to go a little beyond that in order to see a certain painting which both chronologically and as an influence comes before a painting that we shall find in the Museo S.Marco.We therefore cross the Piazza S.Marco to the Via d'Arrazzieri, which leads into the Via 27 Aprile, [7] where at a door on the left, marked A, is an ancient refectory, preserved as a picture gallery: the Cenacolo di S.Apollonia, all that is kept sacred of the monastery of S.Apollonia, now a military establishment.

This room is important to students of art in containing so much work of Andrea del Castagno (1390-1457), to whom Vasari gives so black a character.

The portrait frescoes are from the Villa Pandolfini (previously Carducci), and among them are Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante--who is here rather less ascetic than usual--none of whom the painter could have seen.

There is also a very charming little cupid carrying a huge peacock plume.

But "The Last Supper" is the glory of the room.