[178] These magnificent miniatures were sold with the rest of the Hailstone Collection in 1891; one of them, in the possession of the present writer, is a magnificent initial O, measuring eight by nine inches, enclosing a very beautiful seated figure of Saint Stephen in a violet dalmatic with richly decorated gold _apparels_. [179] See Vasari, Milanesi Ed. Vol. II. p. 15. Vasari also mentions a monk of the same monastery named Don Jacopo, a contemporary of Don Silvestro, who illuminated twenty large choir-books of extraordinary beauty. [180] He appears to have abstained from purchasing these choir-books because they were of the special Camaldolese _Use_, and could not therefore be used in the Vatican Basilica. [181] Fra Angelico's works were executed throughout the first half of the fifteenth century. Vasari mentions some magnificent manuscripts illuminated by him for the Cathedral of Florence, but they are not now known to exist. [182] This is very doubtful. Fra Angelico's brother Fra Benedetto da Fiesole was a scribe rather than a miniaturist, and probably only wrote the fine large text; the illuminations were probably added by a pupil of Fra Angelico, named Zanobi Strozzi, who died in 1468. [183] As an example of this I may mention Fra Angelico's system of painting the shadows of drapery in pure colour, using the same colour mixed with white for the rest of the folds. To some extent this method was used by the Sienese school of painting, which in other respects resembles in style the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts; see above, p. 114. [184] Taking it all round, in painting, sculpture, the medallist's art and other branches of the fine arts, no country and no period except Athens in the time of Pericles can ever have quite equalled the artistic glories of Florence under Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo de' Medici. [185] _Pontificals_ contain such Services as only Bishops or Archbishops could celebrate, and therefore comparatively few would be required. [186] A beautiful manuscript of about 1460 in the Fitzwilliam Museum has its first page surrounded with a border of this class of design, the interest of which is much increased by the minutely written signature, "Jacopo da Fabriano," introduced among the leavy ornaments of the margin. [187] This kind of design, with a blank space for the owner's arms, is used for many of the beautiful wood-cut borders in the early printed books of Florence and Venice. [188] Decorative accessories of this sculpturesque kind are largely used in the paintings of Andrea Mantegna of Padua.