One of the most interesting sights in the city is the Palazzo Schifanoia, now used as a museum and containing frescoes by Cossa and Cosimo Tura.

The Realists are ushered in by Masolino, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, and go on in an unbroken series through Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Cosimo Roselli, to Domenico Ghirlandajo, Leonardo, Raffaello, and a design of Michel Angelo, painted by one of his pupils.

The progress of landscape, history, and anatomical drawing may be traced in Paolo Uccello, Dello Delli, Piero di Cosimo, Pinturicchio, the Pollajuoli, and Luca Signorelli.

Married, in 1384, to Donna Piccarda, daughter of Messer Odoardo de' Bueri, he was the father of four sonsAntonio, Damiano, Cosimo, and Lorenzothe two former died in childhood.

The choice of names for two of the boys is significant of the value Messer Giovanni placed upon his family's originSaints Damiano and Cosimo, of course, were patrons of doctors and apothecaries.

Young Cosimo used his opportunities so well that he was looked upon as a successful financier, and came to be called "The Great Merchant of Florence!"

The direct line of Cosimo, "Il Padre della Patria," the elder surviving son of Messer Giovanni di Averardo "Bicci" de' Medici, ended with Caterina, Queen of France, the only legitimate child of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and last Capo della Repubblica of Florence; and Alessandro the Bastard, first Duke of Florence, the illegitimate son of Pope Clement VII.

The Domina Lucrezia, who had suddenly retired from the prominent position she held at the Court of her son, remained at Careggi with the venerable Madonna Contessina, Cosimo's widow, upon whom she waited with the utmost devotion.

To the Medici shrine of San Lorenzo they bore himthe yellow light of the wax candles revealing the tombs of Cosimo and Piero.

After Brunelleschi and Alberti came Michellozzo, the favourite architect of Cosimo de' Medici; Benedetto da Majano; Giuliano and Antonio di San Gallo; and Il Cronaca.

Cosimo de' Medici, having said that "envy is a plant no man should water," denied himself the monumental house designed by Brunelleschi, and chose instead the modest plan of Michellozzo.

Brunelleschi had meant to build the Casa Medici along one side of the Piazza di S. Lorenzo; but when Cosimo refused his project, he broke up the model he had made, to the great loss of students of this age of architecture.

This is characteristic of Florence in the days of Cosimo.

The former is a marble statue placed upon the north wall of Orsammichele; the latter is a bronze, cast for Cosimo de' Medici, and now exhibited in the Bargello.

For his friend and patron, Cosimo de' Medici, he cast in bronze the group of "Judith and Holofernes"a work that illustrates the clumsiness of realistic treatment, and deserves to be remembered chiefly for its strange fortunes.

Many were naturalists, delighting, like Gentile da Fabriano, in the delineation of field flowers and living creatures, or, like Piero di Cosimo, in the portrayal of things rare and curious.

The spirit of Cosimo de' Medici, almost cynical in its positivism, the spirit of Sixtus IV., almost godless in its egotism, were abroad in Italy at this period; indeed, the fifteenth century presents at large a spectacle of prosaic worldliness and unideal aims.

The whole design, like one of Piero di Cosimo's pictures in another key, leaves a strong impression on the mind, due partly to the oddity of treatment, partly to the careful work displayed, and partly to the individuality of the artist.

The name of Piero di Cosimo has been mentioned incidentally in connection with that of Botticelli; and though his life exceeds the limits assigned for this chapter, so many links unite him to the class of painters I have been discussing, that I can find no better place to speak of him than this.

Cosimo de' Medici, the greatest patron of both art and scholarship in Florence before 1470, represented in his life and in his public policy.

Yet Cosimo gave orders to Donatello for his "David" and his "Judith," employed Michellozzo and Brunelleschi to build him convents and churches, and filled the library of S. Marco, where Fra Angelico was painting, with a priceless collection of MSS.

Fra Bartolommeo was sent, when nine years old, into the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli, where he began his artist's life by colour-grinding, sweeping out the shop, and errand-running.

It was in Cosimo's bottega that he made acquaintance with Mariotto Albertinelli, who became his intimate friend and fellow-worker.

At the close of that cynical and positive century, the spirit whereof was so well expressed by Cosimo de' Medici, Lionardo set before himself aims infinite instead of finite.

There is a touch of reverence in even the strangest stories, which is wanting in the legend of Piero di Cosimo.