objecting to this, negotiated for its removal with the owner of the
ground; and his steward, acting in his name, received a hundred ducats
as the price of his promise that the Virgin should be transferred to the
opposite side of the shrine. The task was undertaken by Buti, but
carried on in the privacy of a curtained scaffolding; and when the
curtains were withdrawn, it was seen that the picture _had_ been
transferred; but that a painting of the Crucifixion occupied its
original place. Four Rabbis, the "sourest and ugliest" of the lot, were
deputed to remonstrate with the steward; but this person coolly replied
that they had no ground of complaint whatever. "His master had amply
fulfilled his bond. Did they fancy their 'sordid' money had bought his
freedom to do afterwards what he thought fit?" And he advised them to
remove themselves before worse befell them. The Jews retired
discomfited; and, as the writer hopes, took warning by what had
happened, never again to tempt with their ill-earned wealth "the
religious piety of good Christians."

Mr. Browning gives this story, with unimportant variations, in the
manner of Baldinucci himself; and does full justice to the hostile and
contemptuous spirit in which the attitude of the Jews is described by
him. But he also heightens the unconscious self-satire of the narrative
by infusing into this attitude a genuine dignity and pathos. He enlists
all our sympathy by the Chief Rabbi's prayer that his people, so sorely
tried in life, may be allowed rest from persecution in their graves; and
he concludes with an imaginary incident which leaves them masters of the
situation. On the day after what the historian calls this "pleasing
occurrence," the son of the High Priest presented himself at Buti's
shop, where he and the so-called "farmer" were still laughing over the
event; and in tones of ominous mildness begged to purchase that pretty
thing--the picture in oils, from which the fresco painting of the Virgin