Benozzo Gozzoli was the favourite pupil of the "angelical painter," Fra Angelico. From him Benozzo borrowed the devotion in his pictures, the bent of his own mind being altogether different. It must be remembered that "in nearly all the great periods of art the choice of subject has not been left to the painter; ... and his own personal feelings are ascertainable only by watching, in the themes assigned to him, what are the points in which he seems to take most pleasure. Thus in the prolonged ranges of varied subjects with which Benozzo Gozzoli decorated the cloisters of Pisa, it is easy to see that love of simple domestic incident, sweet landscape, and glittering ornament, prevails slightly over the solemn elements of religious feeling, which, nevertheless, the spirit of the age instilled into him in such measure as to form a very lovely and noble mind, though still one of the second order" (_Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 8). The earlier works of Benozzo are entirely in Fra Angelico's manner. His later style (of which an example may be seen in No. 591) presents the greatest contrast to that master; for Benozzo is "the first of all the Florentine painters who seem to have been smitten with the beauty of the natural world and its various appearances. His later pictures overflow with the delighted sense of this beauty. He was the first to create rich landscape backgrounds, with cities, villas, and trees, rivers, and richly-cultivated valleys, bold rocks and hills. He displays the richest fancy for architectural forms,--open porticoes, elegant arcades, and balconies. In the representation of the human figure, we find gaiety and whim, feeling and dignity, in the happiest combination" (Layard). Like other painters of the time Benozzo began his career as a worker in metal, and his name is found amongst the artificers who assisted Ghiberti in making the celebrated gates for the Baptistery at Florence. He next entered the school of Fra Angelico, accompanying his master to Rome and Orvieto. In 1459 he was employed to decorate the walls of the small chapel in the Medici, now Riccardi Palace, and here he first gave rein to his own fancies. Copies from these frescoes are included in the Arundel Society's collection, as well as from those in the church of S. Agostino at S. Gimignano, where Benozzo was next employed. The chief work of his life was, however, the painting of the Campo Santo at Pisa. This occupied him from 1469-1485. Twenty-one of the frescoes were by his own hand. They are much injured; for "when any dignitary of Pisa was to be buried, they peeled off some Benozzo Gozzoli and put up a nice new tablet to the new defunct" (_Praeterita_, vol. ii. ch.