MARTYRDOM OF ST. PETER; a fresco by Filippino Lippi, in the Church of S. M. del Carmine at Florence.

The fresco of the two Apostles Peter and John accused by Simon Magus before the throne of Nero, and the Crucifixion of Peter, are now attributed to Filippino Lippi. To him also belongs the grand figure of St. Paul standing before the Prison of St. Peter (also shown in the woodcut), which Raphael transferred with little alteration. into his cartoon of St. Paul preaching at Athens. The four remaining compartments were added many years. later (about 1470), by the same Filippino Lippi, of whom I must say a few words here, as we have lately acquired two of his pictures for the National Gallery, which indeed cannot be accounted among his best, but are genuine and valuable. He was the son of Fra Filippo and Lucrezia Buti; and his father, dying when he was about nine years old, bequeathed him to the love and care of another painter-monk, his friend Fra Diamante. With him and Sandro Botticelli, an admirable artist of that time, Filippino pursued his studies, and, gifted with all the genius of his father, but without his faults, he became one of the greatest painters of that time. There is a picture by him, painted when he was about twenty, in the church of the Badia at Florence, which for drawing, expression, vigorous colour, and beauty of every kind, appeared to me a wonder, even without regard to the early age of the painter when it was executed. It represents the Vision of St. Bernard (the same subject painted by his father and in our National Gallery, but treated in a very different manner). Another most admirable picture by him is the altarpiece of the enthroned Madonna and Child, attended by St. John the Baptist,