with a series of masterpieces! One might as well expect a new
Savonarola, who was likewise a friar in this establishment, to preach
against Pio Nono, and to get himself burned in the Piazza for his
pains.

In the old chapter-house is a very large, and for the angelic Frater a
very hazardous performance,--a Crucifixion. The heads here are full
of feeling and feebleness, except those of Mary Mother and Mary
Magdalen, which are both very touching and tender. There is, however,
an absolute impotence to reproduce the actual, to deal with groups of
humanity upon a liberal scale. There is his usual want of
discrimination, too, in physiognomy; for if the seraphic and
intellectual head of the penitent thief were transferred to the
shoulders of the Saviour in exchange for his own, no one could dispute
that it would be an improvement.

Up stairs is a very sweet Annunciation. The subdued, demure, somewhat
astonished joy of the Virgin is poetically rendered, both in face and
attitude, and the figure of the angel has much grace. A small, but
beautiful composition, the Coronation of the Virgin, is perhaps the
most impressive of the whole series.

Below is a series of frescos by a very second-rate artist,
Poccetti. Among them is a portrait of Savonarola; but as the reformer
was burned half a century before Poccetti was born, it has not even
the merit of authenticity. It was from this house that Savonarola was
taken to be imprisoned and executed in 1498. There seems something
unsatisfactory about Savonarola. One naturally sympathizes with the
bold denouncer of Alexander VI.; but there was a lack of benevolence
in his head and his heart. Without that anterior depression of the