[Illustration: VEROCCHIO (School of) ARCHANGEL RAPHAEL (detail)]
Of course the ideal of angelic beauty varied with each painter. Each
chose for a model the fairest type he could find, and each differed
from his fellow. Perhaps the most popular types of angels in the early
Renaissance were painted by Melozzo da Forlì. A notable group of them
was painted in a cupola of the Church of the Apostles in Rome. They
were angels of the Ascension, and surrounded the rising figure of
Christ. The fresco afterward became so damaged that it was taken down,
and some of the angels were transferred to the Sacristy of St. Peter's,
where they are now to be seen. Our reproduction shows a detail of one
of them,--one with a fair face, abundant hair, a halo about the head
made up of golden cubes of mosaic, and large expanded wings. The figure
is seen slightly foreshortened, and this, with the spread wings that
seem really large enough to support an angel, gives the impression of
flight, or at least a hovering movement. The wings are upraised, and
seem to frame the beautiful head and its halo. This upward swing of the
wings is counterbalanced by the downward sweep of the drapery from the
waist line. Between the upward and the downward curves is a swirling
cross line, made up by the shoulder, the arm, and the violin bow.
All this is shrewdly worked out, and gives force and movement to the
figure. The whole composition has nobility and loftiness about it, and
is not a mere sweet-faced affair of the Carlo Dolci (dol´-chee) kind.
[Illustration: VERONESE: ANNUNCIATION (detail)]
[Illustration: BOTTICELLI: MADONNA, CHILD, AND ANGELS]