Alesso Baldovinetti[38] well represents this moment in a lovely Madonna in the Louvre, Figure 100, which shows in perfection the new topographical landscape and that juvenile graciousness which was to be the staple of the coming generation of artists. Baldovinetti was born in 1425, and this loveliest of all his pictures may represent him about the year 1460. He had been an assistant of Fra Angelico, but in a long career, he died in 1499, he fell behind the times. He taught Domenico Ghirlandaio his elements, and profoundly influenced Andrea Verrocchio and Antonio Pollaiuolo. Thus he keeps a sure if modest place in the progress of Florentine art. In this chapter we have been dealing in a rough way with the Florence of Cosimo de’ Medici. Under his astute and delicate rule from behind the political scenes, Florence developed in wealth, splendor, and worldliness. The old piety was waning or assuming merely æsthetic forms. Greek studies were beginning to pave the way for an enlightened and sceptical humanism and, withal, a revival of the pagan sense of beauty. And when the new beauty came, it was gratefully mindful of those who had made it possible. Leonardo de Vinci lauds Masaccio. He expresses the immense debt that art owes to the first conscious realists. They did good and harm, but to Florence at least they opened the only way of progress. For whatever art may be elsewhere, in Florence it was fruitful only as it was intellectualized. Good theory, good practice—such was the creed imposed by the early realists and later formulated by their great scion, Leonardo. I do not offer it as a universal formula, but in these days when pure spontaneity—that is no theory—and false theory divide the field, the old Florentine credo is at least worthy of consideration by all who produce art and by all who love it. Baldovinetti was untouched by these new stirrings which are associated with the rule of Lorenzo de’ Medici, but he dimly forecasts the grace that was soon to come. This new spirit and its exponents must be the theme of our next chapter. ILLUSTRATIONS FOR CHAPTER III VASARI ON MASACCIO Vasari’s general estimate of Masaccio’s importance is still sound.