The background and accessories here, as well as in 641, are particularly interesting as a record of the decorative art of the time. A few years before the date of these pictures the Pope Leo X. had unearthed the buried treasures of the Baths of Titus, and Giovanni da Udine rediscovered the mode by which their stucco decorations were produced. This method of modelling in wet plaster on walls and ceilings was extensively used in house decoration from that time down to the middle of the last century, but has since then been supplanted by the cheaper process of casting. No sooner was Giovanni da Udine's invention known than it must have been adopted by Ferrarese artists, for here we find Mazzolino portraying it in the background of his picture. As in Tura's pilaster (see 772), the winged sphere plays a principal part in the design, for it was a favourite badge of the ducal house of Ferrara. Nor is it only in the plaster modelling that Mazzolino's interest in decorative art shows itself. The back of the bench on which the Madonna sits is crowned by the most delicate carving, whilst up aloft, peeping over the wall on which the plaster work occurs, there is a choir of angels playing on a portable organ, which is full of suggestions for decorative design (G. T. Robinson in _Art Journal_, May 1886, pp. 151, 152). 170. THE HOLY FAMILY. _Garofalo_ (Ferrarese; 1481-1559). _See_ 81. Notice the rich cap in which the little St. John is dressed; it is not unlike those which French and Flemish children are still made to wear as a protection from tumbles. There is a grace in the figures of the Virgin and St. Elizabeth which recalls Raphael. A less happy effect of his influence may be seen in the vision of the heavenly host above, full of that exaggerated action which marks the decadence of Italian art. God the Father is represented gesticulating wildly, almost like an actor in melodrama. And so with the playing angels. In pictures of the great time they are shown "with uninterrupted and effortless gesture ... singing as calmly as the Fates weave" (_Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret_, p. 15), but here they are all scrambling through their songs, their hair floating in the breeze and their faces full of excited gesture. 172. THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS. _Caravaggio_ (Naturalist: 1569-1609).