pictures of his-such as, for example, one of the 'Scenes from the Life of St. John'—he followed Gentile in adorning the framework of the picture with carefully studied representations of flowers.

His Expulsion from Paradise,42 lent by M. Chalandon, and his Voto per Tempesta di Mare' 43 prove that he had a vivid and fantastic imagination. In the 'Expulsion' is also manifested his power of rendering the nude, a quality which is more fully displayed in his 'Hell' in the Siena Gallery 44 and in his Christ Suffering and Christ Triumphant.' 45

The beautiful Madonna' 46 from the Conservatorio Femminile is the only picture in the Exhibition that can be given to Vecchietta, and this attribution, though probably correct, is by no means fully established.

I will enumerate but three reasons which incline me to accept the attribution of this work to Vecchietta. In the first place this type of face is to be found in his other works, and notably in the Madonna del Manto.' Secondly, with the single exception of Sassetta no other artist of this period succeeded so well in painting flesh illuminated by strong rays of sunlight. Of Vecchietta we recall the St. Lawrence' in the Siena Gallery, and certain angels in the altar-piece of Pienza. Thirdly, I know no other Sienese artist of the Quattrocento who could have been the painter of the folds of the white scarf above the Virgin's breast. Vecchietta's masterly treatment of white drapery is one of the notable technical features of the Pienza Assumption.' At the same time, whilst I am inclined to accept provisionally this attribution, I fully realise the difficulty of the problem that this picture presents. It is in a way unique and exactly resembles nothing in the whole range of Sienese art. Neroccio is represented by a Madonna and Child from the SS. Trinità,47 again a difficult work, regarding which only the charlatan or the neophyte could be very dogmatic. Those certainly have some reason for their belief who hold that it is by Francesco di Giorgio. The attitude of the Madonna and the types of the saints vividly recall to us Francesco's S. Domenico altar-piece. The beautifully designed tabernacle with the base adorned with dancing children also favours the attribution to Francesco. But regarding the work as a whole, and noting especially its general colour scheme, I am inclined to hold that this is a work by Neroccio, painted under Francesco's influence, and but shortly before they dissolved their partnership.

We do not hesitate to give also to Neroccio the two panels representing S. Bernardino preaching and a miracle of S. Bernardino.48 They belong to an earlier date than the Madonna

42 Sala, xxxiv. 13.
45 Idem. No. 212.

7.

43 Ibid. XXXV.
46 Sala, xxxv. 3.

"Siena Gallery, No. 172.
47 Ibid. xxxv. 6.

48 Ibid. i. 41.

of the SS. Trinità. Some of the types in these pictures are, as is natural, common to the works of both of the partners of this period; but other figures, such as the group of women, the left in the 'Saint Preaching,' the fourth figure from the right in the upper row of listeners in the same scene, and the man who is supporting the demoniac woman in the other picture, are peculiarly characteristic of Neroccio. The drawing of the architecture and the treatment of perspective make it impossible that Francesco should have executed these works. They belong to Neroccio's early period. He had already developed a partiality for blonde hair, for nearly every head in both paintings is crowned with masses of it. But charming as are several of his single figures, he had not yet learnt how to draw architecture, nor how to compose a picture.

By Neroccio too are the decorations of a tabernacle that frames a Madonna of Sano di Pietro,49 and which was painted for some member of the Spannocchi family. On the base of this tabernacle, in five tondi, he has painted five figures representing an Annunciation and a 'Pietà.'

Francesco di Giorgio is also represented by two pupils' works. One of these panels, a much restored Madonna from Monastero,5o is by the same hand as a Madonna, St. Jerome,' and 'St. Antony' in Mr. Butler's collection; 51 the other picture, a Madonna of Count Mignanelli, is much nearer to the master; but it has none of the quality of small panels by his own hand, like Sir Frederick Cook's 'Nativity.' Of the third of Vecchietta's followers, Benvenuto di Giovanni, there are two pictures, one an early panel, the other a late work. The early picture is the charming little Madonna from the church of S. Sebastiano.52 The later panel represents the return of Gregory the Eleventh from Avignon.53 Benvenuto's son, Girolamo, is best represented by his large 'Assumption' from Montalcino.54

Perhaps the greatest of the Sienese painters of the Quattrocento was Matteo di Giovanni. Every period of his artistic career is well represented here. His earliest works are the two side panels formerly attached to Sassetta's 'Annunciation,' but which now flank Pietro Lorenzetti's Madonna.55 These panels manifest the influence of Vecchietta rather than of his master, Domenico di Bartolo. The 'S. Bernardino' and the 'Crucifixion' are both imitated from the doors of the press formerly at the Hospital and now at the Siena Gallery. It is not to be wondered at that the St. John Baptist'

49 Sala, xxix. 35. This tabernacle belongs to the Barone Sergardi Biringucci. 50 Ibid. xxix. 11.

51 Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Pictures of the School of Siena (London, 1904), p. 73.

54 Ibid. xxv. 6.

55 Dr. Ricci was, I think, the first to point out that these panels were formerly attached to the Annunciation.' "

,

and the two side panels catalogued Maniera di Vecchietta' have been given by one critic, Dr. E. Jacobsen, to Vecchietta himself. They were probably painted in a rather obscure period of Matteo's career, when he resided in the parish of S. Pietro Ovile.56 Of his middle period there are two large examples, the 'St. Jerome' of Signor Cassini, an imposing but somewhat laboured work, and the Madonnas of 'S. Eugenia' and of S. Sebastiano. His last period is well represented by the Massacre of the Innocents' from S. Agostino, a picture which has not received the attention it deserves. It reveals to us Matteo as a master of portraiture; and we can well understand how it came about that he was ordered to paint the portraits of Sienese ladies.57 There are at least three portraits in this picture. The two men who are sitting to the right and left of Herod are taking no part in the action and are obviously representations of living people. Dr. Jacobsen has suggested that one of them, who wears a red berretta, is the artist himself. The other may well be the painter's patron who ordered the picture. These portraits are in harmony with the rest of the picture. Excited by reports of Turkish atrocities, and by blood-curdling dramatic representations of infidel cruelty, this painter of ethereal Madonnas and visionary saints in his Massacre of the Innocents' indulges in orgies of naturalism.

Guidoccio Cozzarelli, Matteo's pupil, is represented by a number of characteristic works. In the Madonna of Montefollonica,' as in Signor Placidi's 'Madonna' (catalogued 'Maniera di Matteo'), he appears as a close imitator of his master, as he does also in a charming predella from Buonconvento. The drooping eyelids in this picture, the weakness of some of the figures, and the general note of languid sentimentality reveal the pupil's hand, who notwithstanding was never stronger, never nearer to his great master than in these small miniature-like panels. The large Baptism ,58 from Sinalunga exposes the failings of this charming miniaturist.

Pietro di Domenico and Andrea di Niccolò carried into the sixteenth century the aims of the early Sienese masters. In his best work in this collection,59 an Adoration,' Pietro appears as an imitator of Benvenuto. At the same time he reveals his artistic kinship with Fungai and Pacchiarotto. Of Andrea there is nothing quite so archaic at Siena as the 'Madonna' of the Fitzwilliam Museum -a work inspired by Neroccio. But in his latest works, in pictures like the 'Shoemaker's Madonna,' 60 painted when the Cinquecento was already a decade old, the artist still reveals himself as incurably Sienese in his artistic aims, notwithstanding the manifestation of

56 Arch. di Stato, Siena, 'Spedale, Conti Correnti,' H. f, 375.

" In a MS. volume in the Chigi Library, a contemporary sonnet upon a portrait of a lady by Matteo. Codex, M.V., 102. 59 Ibid. xxxv. 6. 60 Ibid. xxiv. 13.

Sala, xxiv. 7.

Umbrian influence in the landscape and in the face and form of the Madonna.

At last in the Cinquecento the old ideals of the Sienese were forsaken. Throughout the Quattrocento Siena had not indeed proved entirely impervious to foreign influences. In the works of Giovanni di Paolo are traces of the influence of Gentile da Fabriano and Fra Angelico. Vecchietta in one of his later works introduced two figures imitated from Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. One at least of Francesco di Giorgio's pictures shows that his art was not unaffected by the presence in Siena of Girolamo da Cremona." Matteo in his later period owed something to Botticelli.

61

But though Sienese artists were not uninfluenced by great masters of other schools they were loyal on the whole to the decorative ideals of Simone until the dawn of the Cinquecento. At that time Siena was visited by Sodoma and Pintoricchio, Signorelli and Perugino. Pintoricchio and Sodoma made the city their home. Thus was brought about an artistic revolution. Fungai-who in his youth had been influenced by Giovanni di Paolo, Vecchietta and Francesco di Giorgio -and Pacchiarotto-who in his early career had been an imitator of Matteo-deserted the old Sienese manner. They and their contemporaries and followers in Siena became eclectics, now following Sodoma and now Raphael and other Umbrians. Of Fungai we have here two characteristic examples of his later or Umbrian manner, Mr. Loeser's decorative Sibyl' 62 and the great Coronation' from the church of Fontegiusta.63 Pacchiaretto may be seen at the Exhibition in all his chief artistic phases. In the Madonna with St. Sebastian and St. Margaret 64 he appears as a follower of Matteo. In the large altar-piece from Buonconvento,65 although there are still strong traces of Matteo's influences, the picture has something of an Umbrian character. In the beautiful Holy Family and Angels' (6 of the Palmieri-Nuti collection Pacchiarotto comes before us as altogether a Sienese-Umbrian, and there is no more trace in his works of the influence of Matteo.

Of the two foreign artists who exercised so profound an influence on the Sienese school, Pintoricchio is only represented by two school pictures, and of Sodoma's achievement there is no really fine example in the galleries. But in the case of Sodoma the altar-piece of the chapel of the Palace and the frescoes of the Sala del Mappamondo and the Gabinetto del Sindaco make up the deficiencies in the temporary collection.

Sodoma's assistant Pacchia, that most consistently mobile of

"See Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of Exhibition of Pictures of the School of Siena, 1904, p. 56.

62 Sala, xxxiv. 35.

65 Ibid. xxiii. 4.

63 Ibid. xxv. 4.

66 Ibid. xxxv. 15.

64 Ibid. xxxiii. 18.

eclectics, is admirably represented in the Exhibition, although there is nothing here so fine as his Raphaelesque 'Madonna' in the church of S. Cristoforo, or his altar-piece at Sinalunga. In the 'Coronation of the Virgin' of S. Spirito 67 and the Ascension' 68 of the Carmine Raphael's influence predominates; in the Annunciation' from Sarteano that of Fra Bartolommeo.

Of Peruzzi it was not possible for the committee to acquire any fine or authentic example. Being first of all an architect and after that a great decorator of architecture, he is never seen at his best in a panel painting. Moreover, some of the pictures attributed to him are by his pupils and some have nothing to do with him. In this collection he is represented by a Madonna 69 from S. Ansano a Dofana, a work of some brilliant follower who had become imbued with Peruzzi's classical enthusiasm, and had some skill as a draughtsman, but who was a far weaker colourist than his master.

Beccafumi, the last of the great Sienese, is represented by the Michaelangelesque St. Michael' of the Carmine, by several Holy Families of varying quality and interest, and by one or two smaller works. The St. Michael' is undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of its school. But none of the other works of the master exhibited here are very interesting or significant. We look in vain in the galleries for one of those works of his in which he rivals Fra Bartolommeo in his treatment of landscape.

It is natural that a people whose decorative ideal was a hieratic sumptuousness, a people who loved rich colours and splendid materials, and whose artists showed singular niceness and refinement in the perfection of detail, should have excelled in those minor arts which add so much to the beauty and comeliness of civilised life. Of the minor arts of the Sienese that which is most adequately represented in this exhibition is the art of the goldsmith.

In this art Siena in the later middle ages knew no rival. In the thirteenth century one of her artists helped to make beautiful Dante's sagrestia dei begli arredi at Pistoia, and in the following age Sienese goldsmiths were employed both by Pope and Emperor. Lando di Pietro made the crown of Henry the Seventh, and Magister Torus was the official goldsmith of the Papal Court. Of these artists the only work at the Mostra is the reliquary of Santuccio, which now helps to make more sumptuous the shadowy splendour of the chapel of the Palazzo Pubblico. This masterpiece is traditionally attributed to Lando di Pietro. By the great contemporary of Lando and Torus, Ugolino di Vieri, is the fine reliquary of S. Savino, which he made with the assistance of Vivo di Lando. Ugolino's masterpiece, the great reliquary of the Corporale, Orvieto

67 Sala, xxv. 2.

68 Ibid. xxv. 13.

Ibid. xxxvii. 14.