elli's manner. One represents three
sturdy monks, clad in brown, working with all their strength to stir a
boulder, which has been bewitched, and needs a miracle to move it from
its place. The square and powerfully outlined drawing of these figures
is beyond all praise for its effect of massive solidity. The other
shows us the interior of a fifteenth century tavern, where two monks are
regaling themselves upon the sly. A country girl, with shapely arms and
shoulders, her upper skirts tucked round the ample waist to which broad
sweeping lines of back and breasts descend, is serving wine. The
exuberance of animal life, the freedom of attitude expressed in this,
the mainly interesting figure of the composition, show that Signorelli
might have been a great master of realistic painting. Nor are the
accessories less effective. A wide-roofed kitchen chimney, a page-boy
leaving the room by a flight of steps, which leads to the house door,
and the table at which the truant monks are seated, complete a picture
of homely Italian life. It may still be matched out of many an inn in
this hill district.

Called to graver work at Orvieto, where he painted his gigantic series
of frescoes illustrating the coming of Antichrist, the Destruction of
the World, the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, and the final state of
souls in Paradise and Hell, Signorelli left his work at Monte Oliveto
unaccomplished. Seven years later it was taken up by a painter of very
different genius. Sodoma was a native of Vercelli, and had received his
first training in the Lombard schools, which owed so much to Lionardo da
Vinci's influence. He was about thirty years of age when chance brought
him to Siena. Here he made acquaintance with Pandolfo Petrucci, who had
recently established himself in a species of tyranny over the Republic.
The work he did for this patron and other nobles of Siena, brought him
into notice. Vasari observes that his hot Lombard colouring, a something
florid and attractive in his style, which contrasted with the severity
of the Tuscan school, rendered him no less agreeable as an artist than
his free manners made him acceptable as a house-friend. Fra Domenico da
Leccio, also a Lombard, was at that time General of the monks of Monte
Oliveto. On a visit to this compatriot in 1505, Sodoma received a
commission to complete the cloister; and during the next two years he
worked there, producing in all twenty-five frescoes. For his pains he
seemed