I really wonder that the Catholics are not better men and
women.
When we had looked at the old frescos, . . . . we emerged into the
cloister again, and thence ventured into a passage which would have led
us to the Chiostro Grande, where strangers, and especially ladies,
have no right to go. It was a secluded corridor, very neatly kept,
bordered with sepulchral monuments, and at the end appeared a vista of
cypress-trees, which indeed were but an illusory perspective, being
painted in fresco. While we loitered along the sacristan appeared and
offered to show us the church, and led us into the transept on the right
of the high altar, and ushered us into the sacristy, where we found two
artists copying some of Fra Angelico's pictures. These were painted on
the three wooden leaves of a triptych, and, as usual, were glorified with
a great deal of gilding, so that they seemed to float in the brightness
of a heavenly element. Solomon speaks of "apples of gold in pictures of
silver." The pictures of Fra Angelico, and other artists of that age,
are really pictures of gold; and it is wonderful to see how rich the
effect, and how much delicate beauty is attained (by Fra Angelico at
least) along with it.
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