*57. Fra Bartolommeo. Marriage of St. Catherine of Siena. This is a variant on the legend of the other St. Catherine—of Alexandria. The infant Christ is placing a ring on the holy nun’s finger. Around are attendant saints—Peter, Vincent, Stephen, etc. The composition is highly characteristic of the painter and his school.
380. Andrea del Sarto. Holy Family. Exquisitely soft in outline and colour.
372. Doubtful. Attributed to Raphael. Charming portrait of a young man.
Beyond it,* two most delicate little pictures of St. George (a man) and St. Michael (an angel, winged) of Raphael’s very early period. Note the princess in the St. George; you will come upon her again. Simple and charming. Trace Raphael’s progress in this gallery, by means of Kugler.
Beyond them, again, two portraits by Raphael, of which 373 is of doubtful authenticity.
*366. Raphael. The Young St. John: a noble figure.
**367. Raphael. St. Margaret: issuing triumphant from the dragon which has swallowed her. A figure full of feeling and movement, and instinct with his later science. It was painted for François Ier, out of compliment to his sister, Queen Margaret of Navarre.
All these Raphaels should be carefully studied. The great painter began with a certain Peruginesque stiffness, through which nevertheless his own native grace makes itself felt at once; he progressed rapidly in knowledge and skill at Florence and Rome, but showed a tendency in his last works towards the incipient faults of the later Renaissance. By following him here, in conjunction with Florence and Rome, you can gain an idea of the course of his development.
The Second Compartment of the Long Gallery, which we now enter, though containing several works by Titian and other masters of the best period, is mainly devoted to painters of the later 16th and 17th century, when the decline in taste was rapid and progressive. Notice throughout the substitution of rhetorical gesture and affected composition for the simplicity of the early masters, or the dignity and truth of the High Renaissance. Begin again on the L wall, containing finer pictures than that opposite.
441. Titian. Another Holy Family, with St. Catherine. Both women here are Venetian ladies of high rank and of his own period. Observe, however, the persistence of the Madonna’s white head-covering. Also, the playfulness introduced in the treatment of St. Catherine’s palm of martyrdom, and the childish St. John with his lamb. These attributes would have been treated by earlier painters with reverence and solemnity. Titian transfers them into mere pretty accessories. Characteristic landscape background. (The female saint in this work is usually described as St. Agnes, because of the lamb: I think erroneously. The lamb is St. John’s, and the St. Catherine merely plays with it.)