There were Lorenzo di Credi and Sandro Botticelli, both middle-aged
men, of a high standing as artists; there were the Delia Robbias,
father and son, and several others. Sandro, while listening, must have
taken in the inspired words with the scent and beauty of the roses,
whose spirit he gives in so many of his paintings.
Young Baccio, on the contrary, feasted his eyes on the speaker's face,
till the very soul within it was imprinted on his mind, from whence he
reproduced it in that marvellous likeness, the year after the martyrdom
of Savonarola.
This is the earliest known work of Fra Bartolommeo, and is a faithful
portrait; the deep-sunk eye-socket, and eye like an internal fire,
showing the preacher's powerful mind; the prominent aquiline nose and
dilating vehement nostril bespeaking his earnestness and decision; the
large full mouth alone shows the timorousness which none but himself
knew of, so overpowered was it by his excitable spirit. The handling is
Baccio's own able style, but Sig. Cavalcaselle thinks the influences of
Cosimo Roselli are apparent in the low tone and clouded translucent
colour; he signed it "Hieronymi Ferrariensis, a Deo missi propheta
effigies," a legend which expresses the more than reverence which
Baccio cherished for the preacher.
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