Hall of the Tuscan School, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Showing large painting of "Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth," by Albertinelli.

rola, Bartolommeo, broken-hearted, threw himself into the convent of St. Mark, Albertinelli became almost distracted and desperate. He would certainly, says Vasari, have gone into the same convent, but for the hatred he bore the monks, 'of whom he was always saying the most injurious things.'

Through some hidden influence of intense sympathy, Albertinelli, though in point of character the very antipodes of his friend, often painted so like him, that his pictures-and this noble picture more particularly-might be mistaken for the work of the frate."

THE VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
MARY.

And Blessed Mary rose and went her way
To Judah, 'mid whose verdant hills there lay
The home of Zaccharias, there to greet

With rev'rent salutation, and repeat

To Saint Elizabeth her secret strange and sweet.

Her simple salutation scarce was spoke,
When from the aged woman's lips there broke
A burst of blessing: "Can it surely be
The mother of my Lord should come to me?
The very babe beneath my heart doth welcome
thee!"

And Mary's answer was that rapturous song
Whose holy echoes our faint lips prolong-
"Magnificat!" My Lord and Savior sweet,
In Blessed Mary I Thy presence greet.

-"Guild of the Holy Ghost."

CHAPTER XIII.

IN A BLAZE OF GLORY.

LEONARDO DA VINCI, RAPHAEL, AND ANDREA DEL SARTO.

Basking in the glory of the Medician splendor were Leonardo da Vinci, the sometime rival of Michael Angelo, as was Raphael in a later day-and Andrea del Sarto.

Leonardo da Vinci was born at Vinci, a small town not far from Florence, in 1452, and his father, Ser Piero Antonio of Vinci, was the notary of the Signoria of Florence. When very young Leonardo displayed great gifts of mind and body, and was placed under the care of Verrocchio, in whose studio he had as a fellow student, Perugino, and when only twenty-one years of age, he took his place in the Guild of Artists at Florence.

In his later years he entered into that wellknown contest with Michael Angelo for the decoration of the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio which Savonarola had ordered for affairs of state during his dominion of Florence; Michael Angelo's subject being an incident in the War with Pisa, "Soldiers Surprised While