etains great charm and beauty,
but the composition is geometrical, and the figures of the Saints
uninteresting and empty. In these, especially the standing figure on the
left, I feel the hand of an assistant. With all Signorelli's
mannerisms, it lacks his resolute touch and powerful presentation. It is
probable that the great inequalities in many of his paintings,
especially at this later time, are due to his leaving much of the
execution to assistants. Whatever faults are in the work of the master
himself, he is never, up to the last, guilty of any feebleness or
insipidity, such, for instance, as in the painting of this unsolid
figure.

[Illustration: [_Brera, Milan_

MADONNA AND SAINTS]

I have been led from one picture to another by reason of similarities of
form, and have omitted to speak of a beautiful and important painting,
evidently executed soon after the Orvieto frescoes, with which it has
much in common. This is the altar-piece in the church of S. Niccolo,
Cortona, on one side of which is a "Madonna and Saints," on the other a
"Dead Christ upheld by Angels." It is as far as I know, original in
idea--this dead Christ supported by the Archangel, while others show the
symbols of the Passion to the group of kneeling Saints. The four Angels
are very noble figures, and resemble those of the "Hell" and
"Resurrection," of Orvieto. The "S. Jerome" is sincerely painted, and
without any of the senile sentimentality with which Signorelli
occasionally represents this Saint. The one false note in the work is
the stunted figure of the dead Christ, which seems all the more
insignificant by contrast with the grand Archangel who supports it. This
poetic figure with its great wings and its tender beauty is perhaps the
greatest of all the master's renderings of the "Divine Birds." The
colour scheme is much lighter than usual, the flesh-tints being
especially fair, and the painting is another instance of those seeming
efforts to adopt a less heavy palette, to which I have drawn attention
in speaking of the Uffizi _Tondo_.

[Illustration: [_S. Niccolo, Cortona_

DEAD CHRIST UPHELD BY ANGELS]

Vischer considers the "Madonna and Saints" on the reverse of the panel
to have been painted at a different date.[71] It is an exceedingly fine
picture, with all the great qualities of majestic beauty. The Virgin
sits enthroned between SS. Peter and Paul, robed in red, and wearing a
blue mantle lined with green. The Child, half lying o