XXV
ANDREA DEL SARTO
1486-1531
Andrea del Sarto stands in the foremost rank of Florentine painters of the sixteenth century, and, after Leonardo and Michelangelo left home, was the only master who rivalled Fra Bartolommeo in the excellence of his art and the greatness of his reputation. If he never attained the Dominican painter's depth and elevation of feeling, he excelled him in the beauty of his drawing and in the harmony and transparency of his colouring. The completeness of his technique won for him the name of Andrea senza errori, the faultless painter, and it is a sure proof of his genius that, at a time when Michelangelo and Leonardo reigned supreme, he should have succeeded in retaining his artistic personality. Unfortunately, he lacked the higher intellectual and spiritual gifts which are needful for the artist's full development, and, in spite of his consummate skill and unerring science, never attained the noble types and ideal beauty of the greatest masters. The natural timidity of his nature and weakness of his character may account in a measure for his comparative failure, and Vasari was convinced that
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