The group of saints on the right is very charming; but we are to be more pleased by this radiant hand when we reach the Accademia.

Already, however, we have learned his love of blue.

Another altar-piece with a subtle quality of its own is the early Annunciation by Simone Martini of Siena (1285-1344) and Lippo Memmi, his brother (d.

1357), in which the angel speaks his golden words across the picture through a vase of lilies, and the Virgin receives them shrinkingly.

It is all very primitive, but it has great attraction, and it is interesting to think that the picture must be getting on for six hundred years of age.