with his hand on his hip.  The companion picture is the most popular of all—­the Birth of the Virgin—­certainly one of the most charming interiors in Florence.  Here again we have portraits—­no doubt Tornabuoni ladies—­and much pleasant fancy on the part of the painter, who made everything as beautiful as he could, totally unmindful of the probabilities.  Ruskin is angry with him for neglecting to show the splashing of the water in the vessel, but it would be quite possible for no splashing to be visible, especially if the pouring had only just begun; but for Ruskin’s strictures you must go to “Mornings in Florence,” where poor Ghirlandaio gets a lash for every virtue of Giotto.  Next—­above, on the left—­we have the Presentation of the Virgin and on the right her Marriage.  The Presentation is considered by Mr. Davies to be almost wholly the work of Ghirlandaio’s assistants, while the youthful Michelangelo himself has been credited with the half-naked figure on the steps, although Mr. Davies gives it to Mainardi.  Mainardi again is probably the author of the companion scene.  The remaining frescoes are of less interest and much damaged; but in the window wall one should notice the portraits of Giovanni Tornabuoni and Francesca di Luca Pitti, his wife, kneeling, because this Giovanni was the donor of the frescoes, and his sister Lucrezia was the wife of Piero de’ Medici and therefore the mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, while Francesca Tornabuoni, the poor lady who died in childbirth, was the daughter of that proud Florentine who began the Pitti palace but ended his life in disgrace.

And so we leave this beautiful recess, where pure religious feeling may perhaps be wanting but where the best spirit of the Renaissance is to be found:  everything making for harmony and pleasure; and on returning to London the visitor should make a point of seeing the Florentine girl by the same hand in our National Gallery, No. 1230, for she is very typical of his genius.

On the entrance wall of the church is what must once have been a fine Masaccio—­“The Trinity”—­but it is in very bad condition; while in the Cappella Rucellai in the right transept is what purports to be a Cimabue, very like the one in the Accademia, but with a rather more matured Child in it.  Vasari tells us that on its completion this picture was carried in stately procession from the painter’s studio to the church, in great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, the populace being moved not only by religious ecstasy but by pride in an artist who could make such a beautiful and spacious painting, the largest then known.  Vasari adds that when Cimabue was at work upon it, Charles of Anjou, visiting Florence, was taken to his studio, to see the wonderful painter, and a number of Florentines entering too, they broke out into such rejoicings that the locality was known ever after as Borgo Allegro, or Joyful Quarter.  This would be about 1290.  There was a certain fitness in Cimabue painting this Madonna, for it is said that he had his education in the convent which stood here before the present church was begun.  But I should add that of Cimabue we know practically nothing, and that most of Vasari’s statements have been confuted, while the painter of the S. Maria Novella Madonna is held by some authorities to be Duccio of Siena.  So where are we?