him night and day, until he had wholly recovered" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, 1850, pp. 343,344). This legend was one of the special favourites with the mediaval painters: "the display of beautiful form, permitted and even consecrated by devotion, is so rare in Christian representations, that we cannot wonder at the avidity with which this subject was seized" (ibid., p. 346). It is instructive to compare the noble use of the legend made in this picture, in which the great technical skill of the painter is subordinate to the beautiful display of a sacred legend, with the "St. Sebastian" of Pollajuolo (I. 292, p. 18), in which, as we have seen, the subject is used solely and painfully-for the display of such skill. With St. Sebastian is here represented, on his left, his contemporary, St. Demetrius. He is clad in armour, for he also served under Diocletian, being Proconsul of Greece, and like St. Sebastian used his high office to preach Christ. On the other side is St. Roch (for whose legend see under VII. 735, p. 149). He is a much later saint (about A.D. 1300), and is associated with St. Sebastian as another patron of the plague-stricken. Arrows have been from all antiquity the emblem of pestilence; and from the association of arrows with his legend, St. Sebastian succeeded in Christian times to the honours enjoyed by Apollo, in Greek mythology, as the protector against pestilence.

1234. "A MUSE INSPIRING A COURT POET." Dosso Dossi (Ferrarese: 1479-1542). See under 640, p. 90.

Called a "court poet" because, one may suppose, of his sleek and uninspired appearance; but poets do not always look their parts, and 'tis the function of the Muse "to mould the secret gold." But perhaps the artist has some gently sarcastic intention, for it is but a small sprig that the Muse has spared to the poet from her garland.

1217. THE ISRAELITES GATHERING MANNA.

Ercole di Roberti Grandi (Ferrarese: 1445-1495).1 This Ercole is not to be confused (as Vasari in his Lives confuses him) with the younger painter of the same family (see I119, p. 82). The latter

1 This date is given on the authority of Layard (351 n.), who refers to a document recently discovered by the director of the public gallery at Modena.

was a pupil of Lorenzo Costa; this one closely resembles Mantegna. Thus in this picture "the lithe and sinewy form in the nude figure of the young man, the accurate draughtsmanship, the firm modelling, the care and study bestowed even on the tiny figures in the background, the dramatic intention and impression of vitality, indicate a familiarity with the works of Mantegna " (Times, July 24, 1886).

"MORE allied to the Tuscan than to the Venetian spirit, the Umbrian masters produced a style of genuine originality. The cities of the Central Apennines owed their specific quality of religious fervour to the influences emanating from Assisi, the headquarters of the cultus of St. Francis. This pietism, nowhere else so paramount, except for a short period in Siena, constitutes the individuality of Umbria" (J. A. SYMONDS: Renaissance in Italy, iii. 182).

Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth

Well, I can fancy how he did it all,

Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
Above and through his art. .

BROWNING: Andrea del Sarto.

THE Umbrian School, unlike the Florentine, was distinctively provincial; painting was not centralised, that is to say, in any great capital, but flourished in small towns and retired valleys in Perugia, Foligno, Borgo S. Sepolcro, S. Severino, etc. Hence the older traditions of Italian art held their ground, and the religious feeling of the Middle Ages survived long after it had elsewhere been superseded. This tendency was confirmed by the spirit of the district. The little townships of Umbria begirdle the Hill of Assisi, the hallowed abode of St. Francis, and were the peculiar seats of religious enthusiasm. Art followed the current of life,

just as it did in Florence or Venice or Padua; and Umbria -"the Galilee," as it has been called, "of Italy"—thus produced a distinct type in painting, marked by a quality of sentimental pietism. The influence of Siena, whose artists worked at Perugia, must have made in the same direction, and it is interesting to notice in this room one picture of St. Catherine of Siena (249), and two of her namesake of Alexandria (693, 168). It is interesting, further, to notice how the "purist" style of landscape, identified with this pietistic art (see p. 104), is characteristic of the district itself. "Whoever visits the hill-town of Perugia will be struck," says Morelli, p. 252, "with two things: the fine, lovely voices of the women, and the view that opens before the enraptured eye, over the whole valley, from the spot where the old castle stood of yore. On your left, perched on a projecting hill that leans against the bare sunburnt down, lies Assisi, the birthplace of S. Francis, where first his fiery soul was kindled to enthusiasm, where his sister Clara led a pious life, and finally found her grave. Lower down, the eye can still reach Spello and its neighbouring Foligno, while the range of hills, on whose ridge Montefalco looks out from the midst of its gray olives, closes the charming picture. This is the gracious nook of earth, the smiling landscape, in which Pietro Perugino loves to place his chaste, God-fraught Madonnas, and which in his pictures, like soft music, heightens the mood awakened in us by his martyrs pining after Paradise." Such were the local circumstances of the art which, beginning with the almost grotesque pietism of Niccolò da Foligno (1107, p. 101), led up to the "purist ideal" of Perugino and to the first manner of Raphael.

The scattered character of Umbrian art above referred to makes it impossible for us to trace its course historically. From that point of view each of the local schools would have to be treated separately. Of the local schools which were the earliest to develop-Gubbio, Fabriano, and S. Severinothe first two are not represented here at all, and the third has only one picture (249, p. 99). The taste for art amongst the people of Perugia was much later in developing itself.

Even up to 1440 they had to rely on Sienese artists; and later still they sent for Piero della Francesca, of Borgo S. Sepolcro, who had studied at Florence and had greatly advanced the science of perspective. Many of the Umbrian masters -Melozzo, Palmezzano, Fra Carnovale, Giovanni Santi, and even perhaps Perugino, were pupils of his. The earliest native artist of Perugia in the gallery is Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, (1103, p. 99), who, however, owed much to the Florentine Benozzo Gozzoli. This Fiorenzo was probably the master of Pinturicchio. The latter worked for some time under Perugino, who had studied under Piero della Francesco and afterwards himself went to study in Florence. Perugino in his turn was the master, after Timoteo Viti, of Raphael. We have thus completed the circle of the principal Umbrian masters. They are allied, as it will have been seen, by teaching, to the Florentines, but they retained a distinctive character throughout. The one exception in this respect is Luca Signorelli, who, though he was apprenticed to Piero della Francesca, was born nearer to Florence, and whose affinities are far more with the Florentine than with the Umbrian School.

912, 913, 914. THE STORY OF GRISELDA. Pinturicchio (Perugia: 1454-1513).

See under 693, p. 105.

On these three panels (ascribed perhaps rashly to Pinturicchio), which were probably destined to serve as decorations to a chest, the story of Griselda is told with much naïve awkwardness of drawing, but also with much naïve playfulness of incident. The story, told in Boccaccio's Decameron, and by Petrarch, is also to be found in Chaucer's Clerkes Tale.

In the first picture (912) we see (1) on the extreme left, the Marquis of Saluzzo, who is out hunting with a great retinue. He meets Griselda, a peasant girl, who is drawing water at the well, and falls in love with her. Next (2) on the extreme right, is her humble barn-like dwelling, with the marquis serenading his love from below. (3) He carries her off with him; and note how Griselda, who is to be modest and humble to the end, hangs her head in "maiden shamefacedness." (4) Then the marquis has her attired in gold and fine linen, fit for a prince's bride. Her pattens and perhaps her