It is true it may have been
overrated at the time, for the Frate's chief excellence lay in the
grandeur of his drapery; the test of authenticity for a nude study from
him would lie more in the colouring and handling than in form.
In the early part of 1515 Fra Bartolommeo went to pay his old friend
Santi Pagnini, the Oriental scholar, a visit at the convent of San
Romano, in Lucca, of which he was now prior, passing by Pistoja on
February 17th to sign a contract for an altar-piece to be placed in the
church of San Domenico--a commission from Messer Jacopo Panciatichi.
The price was fixed at 100 gold ducats, and the subject to be the
Madonna and Child, with SS. Paul, John Baptist, and Sebastian. On his
arrival at Lucca he was soon busy with his great work, the _Madonna
della Misericordia_, for the church of San Romano. The composition
of this is full and harmonious. A populace of all ages and conditions,
grouped around the throne of the Madonna, beg her prayers; she,
standing up, seems to gather all their supplications in her hands and
offer them up to heaven, from which, as a vision, Christ appears from a
mass of clouds in act of benediction.
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