xion," the group at the foot of the Cross is arranged
much like those of the San Sepolcro, Urbino, and Cortona pictures, but
it is half lost in the confusion of a crowd of mounted soldiers. The
impressive silence and solemnity of these earlier "Pietas" is changed
here to a scene of noisy turmoil, and the painter's interest is
obviously centred on the movement of this hustling crowd. The horses are
badly drawn and ill-balanced, as in the Louvre "Adoration," and the
Magdalen is very coarsely painted. The animation and action are well
rendered, but something of the grandeur of his earlier work is
sacrificed.

This grandeur was, however, fully regained in the last work of the
master, painted in 1523, the very year of his death--"The Coronation of
the Virgin," in the Collegiata of Foiano, a small town near Sinalunga.

The Virgin, in red robes and greenish-blue mantle, with fair hair,
kneels before Christ, who places the crown on her head. On either side
two angels play musical instruments, and on the right and left stand S.
Joseph and the Archangel Michael. In the foreground kneels S. Martin, to
whom the altar-piece was dedicated, in a magnificent gold cope, having
on his left S. Jerome with a grey loin-cloth. Farther back are three
monks, and behind S. Martin stands the Magdalen, while on the other side
an old saint introduces the donor, Angelo Massarelli. The general tone
of colour is not nearly so heavy as in the Arezzo painting, the reds
are of a pale rose-colour, and only the flesh-tints of S. Jerome are
very dark. This figure and the S. Martin are nobly and powerfully
conceived. The donor recalls the portrait of the Gamurrini of Arezzo.

The painting does not seem to be the unassisted work of Signorelli, the
S. Michael being too insignificant a figure, and the Magdalen too weakly
executed to be by his own hand. The _predella_ bears evidence that he
had an assistant, for, of the four stories of S. Martin, which they
illustrate, only two are by the master. These two are very fine and
bold, in composition and brushwork. In the first the Saint, clad in
armour, is seated on the characteristic white horse, with a man-at-arms
behind him, and divides his cloak with the nude beggar. The background
is a broadly-painted landscape. The other represents the Saint kneeling
before a Bishop and two acolytes, clothed in a green tabard, a romantic
and beautiful figure. The two remaining divisions are larger in size,
and obviously the