XXIII
FRA BARTOLOMMEO
1475-1517
The same Dominican convent which once numbered Fra Angelico among its brothers, gave the world another painter who was reckoned among the foremost masters of the sixteenth century. Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco never attained to the intense fervour and spirituality of Fra Giovanni, but he was a painter of great intellectual power and deep sincerity who gave utterance to his pure and reverent thoughts in the more perfect language of art in his age. He is especially interesting as the chief representative of Savonarola's revival, who embraced the faith of the Friar and followed in his steps to the end, while at the same time he was one of the first artists to accept the ideas of the new century, to put in practice the principles of Leonardo and prepare the way for Raphael.
Baccio della Porta, as Fra Bartolommeo was called in his youth, was the son of a poor muleteer named Paolo Fattorino, who saved enough money to buy a plot of land and a house near the Porta di San Pier Gattolini, outside the walls of Florence. There his
