ed to receive in future."[74]

[Illustration:

[_Mancini Coll.,
Citta di Castello_

MADONNA AND SAINTS]

The Virgin stands heavily on the heads of cherubs, with S. Sebastian on
one side, and Santa Cristina, with a terribly realistic millstone hung
round her neck, on the other. Two angels hold the crown over her head,
and below stand S. Jerome and S. Nicholas of Bari, both intently
reading. The background stretches away into a charming distant
landscape, in which is a lake, not unlike Trasimeno, and sloping hills,
on which scenes of pastoral life are taking place. This landscape, taken
by itself, is the best part of the painting; of the rest, the
composition is too mechanically precise, the values of distance are bad,
the figures being all on the same plane, and even the landscape does not
keep its proper place in the picture. This last fault may, however, be
due to repainting, which is so thick that it is useless to speak of the
present colour. The altar-piece was discovered by Signor Giacomo Mancini
in a cellar in Montone, almost destroyed by damp and neglect, and since
its restoration it is perhaps hardly fair to discuss more than the
general lines; yet these, in the awkwardness of arrangement, and the
comparative triviality of the figures, both in attitude and gesture,
betray a weakness we have not hitherto met with.

Another picture of the same date--1515--is "The Madonna and Saints," in
the church of San Domenico, Cortona, also in very bad condition. The
restoration of the seventeenth century added a piece of canvas all
round, in order to enlarge it. It was painted for Serninio, Bishop of
Cortona, whose portrait is to be seen in the corner, full of expression
and exceedingly well modelled. The Virgin, in red robe and green mantle,
sits with her feet resting on the heads of cherubs, with an angel on
either side, and below S. Peter Martyr, and S. Domenico. It is an
important work, and among the most successful of the later paintings,
and it is curious that it should not have been photographed by either of
the larger firms.

The next year, 1516, Signorelli painted "The Deposition," of Umbertide,
in which he shows all the technical power of his maturity--(or was it,
perhaps, that he left less of the execution to assistants?). It was
executed for the little dark church of Santa Croce, in this village,
till recently called La Fratta, and still stands over the high
altar--not, however, in its original frame, which