_Lorenzo Monaco_ (Florentine: 1370-1425).
Don Lorenzo was born at Siena, but became a Camaldose monk of
the Convent of the Angeli at Florence, his early practice being
that of a miniaturist. In the principal of his known works--an
altar-piece of 1413 now in the Uffizi at Florence, Mr. Roger
Fry bids us note the cunning with which the painter "weaves
together his flowing curves," the "rare charm in his ætherial,
unstructural draperies," and "a kind of visible music" in his
design (_Monthly Review_, June 1901).
Something of these qualities may be seen in the long and slender
figures of our picture. The decorativeness of its patterns, and the
architectural details, should also be noticed. The picture, formerly
in a church at Certaldo, is in its original Gothic frame. Crowe and
Cavalcaselle (vol. i. p. 554) suppose the picture to have formed part
of a larger altar-piece of which the two wings are in our gallery,
ascribed to the school of Taddeo Gaddi (Nos. 215, 216). But the
different scale of the figures in them negatives this supposition.