was removed in the
seventeenth century. It seems that there was a lunette over the top,
containing a Pieta.[75] Terribly defaced by bad restoration, and the
cracking of the later paint, it is still a very beautiful work, and its
_predella_ has all the qualities of boldness and freedom characteristic
of the master's best times. Some of the figures are perhaps too
obviously life-studies, especially the Mary, standing in the foreground
left, which he evidently painted straight from some _contadina_, whose
stolid features he reproduced without reference to the subject. The
body of the Christ is successful, and has all the weight and helpless
inertia of a corpse; the composition is admirable, and there is
sincerity of emotion in the painting of much of the scene. It is,
however, in the three pictures of the _predella_ that we shall find most
proof of the vigour of mind and hand. It is interesting to compare
Signorelli's treatment of the same subject with that of Pier dei
Franceschi in Arezzo, at the painting of which he probably assisted,
more than forty years before--"The March of Constantine," "The Discovery
of the Cross," and "The Entry of Heraclius into Jerusalem." The first of
the three is the best, both for the special quality of animated
movement, and for the excellence of its composition and its effect of
spacious movement. How much larger a tiny panel like this appears than
some of the crowded altar-pieces of his later years! Dashed in with a
few broad touches, as a modern impressionist might paint, the scene of
the camp is most natural, with its groups of soldiers and marching
troops with raised lances and fluttering pennons.

[Illustration: [_Santa Croce, Umbertide_

THE DEPOSITION]

In the second, three scenes are run into one, without much reference to
any sequence of the story. On the right the Queen of Sheba kneels before
the bridge which she has recognised as the sacred wood; on the left the
Empress Helena finds the three crosses; and in the centre takes place
the testing of the true one in the resuscitation of the dead youth. In
the third--"The Entry of Heraclius into Jerusalem"--we have again a
splendid effect of a moving body of men. The Emperor has descended from
his horse, which is led behind him, and barefooted, in his shirt, he
carries the Cross within the gates.

The next dated work--"The Madonna and Saints," of the Arezzo Gallery,
was painted three years after this, in 1519. "He executed," says