t the battle of Ravenna in 1504, and Costanza had
his son's body embalmed and buried in the family chapel.

Nothing is known of the details of this commission, but we are not
straining the bounds of probability by assuming that in a little town
like Castelfranco, hardly more than a village, the two youths must
have been well known to each other, and that this acquaintance and
the familiarity of the one with the appearance of the other may have
been the determining cause which led the bereaved father to give the
commission to the young painter, while the tragic circumstances were
such as would appeal to an ardent, enthusiastic nature. A treasure of
our National Gallery is a study made by Giorgione for the figure of San
Liberale, who is represented as a young man with bare head and crisp,
golden locks, dressed in silver armour, copied from the suit in which
Matteo Costanza is dressed in the stone effigy which is still preserved
in the cemetery at Castelfranco. At the side of the stone figure lies a
helmet, resembling that on the head of the saint in the altarpiece.

In Giorgione's group the Mother and Child are enthroned on high, with
St. Francis and St. Liberale on either hand. The Child's glance is
turned upon the soldier-saint, a gallant figure with his lance at rest,
his dagger on his hip, his gloves in his hand, young, high-bred, with
features of almost feminine beauty. The picture is conceived in a new
spirit of simplicity of design, and shows a new feeling for restraint in
matters of detail. It is the work of a man who has observed that early
morning, like late evening, has a marvellous power of eliminating all
unessential accessories and of enveloping every object in a delicious
scheme of light. Repainted, cleaned, restored as the canvas is, it is
still full of an atmosphere of calm serenity. It is not the ecstatic,
devotional reverie of Perugino's saints. The painter of Castelfranco
has not steeped his whole soul in religious imagination, like the
painter of Umbria; he is an exemplar of the lyric feeling; his work is a
poem in praise of youth and beauty, and dreams in air and sunshine. He
uses atmosphere to enhance the mood, but Giorgione carries his unison of
landscape with human feeling much further than Perugino; he observes the
delicate effects of light, and limpid air circulates in his distance.
The sun rising over the sea throws a glamour and purity of early morning
over a scene meant to glorify the memory