rivalled Andrea del Sarto. In the first picture, the eagerness of the
crowd, the intense feeling of the mother, in whom grief for the dead
child seems almost greater than the hope of his resuscitation, the
sturdy, solid character of the Florentines of the Republic, are all
given with a masterly hand, while a rich blending of colour fuses the
animated crowd in a harmonious unison. In the latter, grandeur and
dignity mark the group of ecclesiastics which surrounds the
archbishop's bier, the full solid falls of their drapery show that he
had well studied his father's works.

Ridolfo's brothers became monks, Don Bartolommeo lived in the
Camaldoline Monastery of the Angeli, which Ridolfo beautified with many
works. Paolo Uccelli had adorned the Loggia with frescoed stories from
the life of S. Benedict. Ridolfo added two to the series. In one the
Saint is at table with two angels, waiting for S. Romano to send his
bread from the grotto, but the devil has cut the cord and taken it.

Another is _S, Benedict investing a youth with the habit of the
order_. In the church of the same monastery he painted a beautiful
_Madonna and Child, with Angels_, above the holy water vase, and
_S. Romualdo with the Camaldolese Hermitage in his Hand_, in a
lunette in the cloister. All these were done as a brotherly gift, and
after they were finished, the abbot, Don Andrea Dossi, gave him a
commission to paint a _Last Supper_ in the refectory, which he
did, placing the portrait of the abbot in the corner.

Ridolfo, like his father, regarded art rather as a means of livelihood
than with any aesthetic feelings, and this is probably the reason of
his never attaining true excellence. His "bottega" was really a shop
where any one might order a work of art, or of artisanship, and he gave