esco with some of
his relatives. In this work is a S. Michael weighing souls, who is
admirable; and in him there is seen the knowledge of Luca, both in
the splendour of his armour and in the reflected lights, and, in
short, throughout the whole work. In his hands he placed a pair of
scales, in which are nude figures, very beautifully foreshortened,
one going up and the other down; and among other ingenious things
that are in this picture is a nude figure most skilfully transformed
into a devil, with a lizard licking the blood from a wound in its
body. Besides this, there is a Madonna with the Child on her lap,
with S. Stephen, S. Laurence, S. Catherine, and two angels, of whom
one is playing on a lute and the other on a rebec; and all these
figures are draped and adorned so beautifully that it is a marvel.
But the most miraculous part of this panel is the predella, which is
full of Friars of the said S. Catherine in the form of little
figures.

[Illustration: LUCA SIGNORELLI: PAN

(_Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 79A. Canvas_)

In Perugia, also, he made many works; among others, a panel in the
Duomo for Messer Jacopo Vannucci of Cortona, Bishop of that city; in
which panel are Our Lady, S. Onofrio, S. Ercolano, S. John the
Baptist, and S. Stephen, with a most beautiful angel, who is tuning
a lute. At Volterra, over the altar of a Company in the Church of S.
Francesco, he painted in fresco the Circumcision of Our Lord, which
is considered beautiful to a marvel, although the Infant, having
been injured by damp, was restored by Sodoma and made much less
beautiful than before. And, in truth, it would be sometimes better
to leave works half spoilt, when they have been made by men of
excellence, rather than to have them retouched by inferior masters.
In S. Agostino in the same city he painted a panel in distemper, and
the predella of little figures, with stories of the Passion of
Christ; and this is held to be extraordinarily beautiful. At S.
Maria a Monte he painted a Dead Christ on a panel for the monks of
that place; and at Citta di Castello a Nativity of Christ in S.
Francesco, with a S. Sebastian on another panel in S. Domenico. In
S. Margherita, a seat of the Frati del Zoccolo in his native city of
Cortona, he painted a Dead Christ, one of the rarest of his works;
and for the Company of the Gesu, in the same city, he executed three
panels, of which the one that is on the high-altar is marvellous,
showing Christ a