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Coombes and went to San Marco and its Convent, where Fra Angelico lived and painted, and Savonarola was imprisoned before his martyrdom.  There was a bust of Savonarola in the cell he occupied and some of his books and vestments.  Every cell almost has a fresco by either Angelico or one of his pupils but only a few of them are really interesting  It is very hard for a 19th Century mind to get itself 'en train' for either dungeons or rapt Saints: especially when plenty of comfortable people are walking about and there is neither [[---or?]] nor superstition how ever lofty and 'devote' in the air.

In Venice with Mr Ruskin’s suggestions and Mr Powell's real enjoyment of the Bellinis and Carpaccios, and Cima's  I found myself understanding and appreciating a great deal - and I am glad I had all that before I came here.  May thinks most of this kind are hideous, 


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and that the people who profess to like them are only pretending - but the test is to put any other modern pictures pretending to be religious beside them  the result is like smelling an artificial flower—  I like the strong hard old ones better than the Andrea del Sartos and Fra Bartolomeo's—  I dont care for many of Titians - but there is a portrait of a young Florentine gentleman in the Pitti that is an absolute wonder.  It is three quarter length standing, in a black or dark 16th Century costume - that part is nothing in fact; the face is looking full at you, quietly.  He is pale, and not handsome, exactly - too refined to satisfy himself with common pleasures, and yet has not satisfied his heart with any other—  I think Titian was immensely interested in him, but could not make him talk much while he was posing, which I know bored, and if he had not been such a swell would