The monks felt his death intensely, and buried him with great honour in
San Marco.
He left to art the most valuable legacy possible--a long list of
masterpieces in which religious feeling is expressed in the very
highest language. In all his works there is not a line or tint which
transgresses against either the sentiment of devotion, or the rules of
art. He stands for ever, almost on a level with the great trio of the
culmination, "possessing Leonardo's grace of colour and more than his
industry, Michelangelo's force with more softness, and Raphael's
sentiment with more devotion;" yet with just the inexpressible want of
that supernatural genius which would have placed him above them all.
His legacy to the world is a series of lessons from the very first
setting of his ideal on paper to its finished development. The germ
exists in the charcoal sketches at the Belle Arti and Uffizi; the
under-shadowing of the subject is seen in the _Patron Saints_ at
the Uffizi.
Many of his drawings are not to be traced. Some were used by Fra
Paolino, his pupil, who at his death passed them to Suor Plautilla
Nelli, a nun in Sta.
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