[209] See the article on Orvieto in my Sketches in Italy and Greece.

[210] The earlier frescoes of Fra Angelico, on the roof, depict Christ as Judge.  But there is nothing in common with these works and Signorelli’s.

[211] This is the conjecture of Signor Luzi (Il Duomo di Orvieto, p. 168).  He bases it upon the Dantesque subjects illustrated, and quotes from the “Inferno":—­

                   “Omero poeta sovrano;
    L’ altro e Orazio satiro che viene,
    Ovidio e il terzo, e l’ ultimo Lucano.”

Nothing is more marked or more deeply interesting than the influence exercised by Dante over Signorelli, an influence he shared with Giotto, Orcagna, Botticelli, Michael Angelo, the greatest imaginative painters of Central Italy.

[212] The background to the circular “Madonna” in the Uffizzi, the “Flagellation of Christ” in the Academy at Florence and in the Brera at Milan, and the “Adam” at Cortona, belong to this grade.

[213] We may add the pages in a predella representing the “Adoration of the Magi” in the Uffizzi.

[214] Vasari mentions the portraits of Nicolo, Paolo, and Vitellozzo Vitelli, Gian Paolo, and Orazio Baglioni, among others, in the frescoes at Orvieto.

[215] Painted for Lorenzo de’ Medici.  It is now in the Berlin Museum through the neglect of the National Gallery authorities to purchase it for England.

[216] I must not omit to qualify Vasari’s praise of Luca Signorelli, by reference to a letter recently published from the Archivio Buonarroti, Lettere a Diversi, p. 391.  Michael Angelo there addresses the Captain of Cortona, and complains that in the first year of Leo’s pontificate Luca came to him and by various representations obtained from him the sum of eighty Giulios, which he never repaid, although he made profession to have done so.  Michael Angelo was ill at the time, and working with much difficulty on a statue of a bound captive for the tomb of Julius.  Luca gave a specimen of his renowned courtesy by comforting the sculptor in these rather sanctimonious phrases:  “Doubt not that angels will come from heaven, to support your arms and help you.”

[217] Pietro, known as Perugino from the city of his adoption, was the son of Cristoforo Vannucci, of Citta della Pieve.  He was born in 1446, and died at Fontignano in 1522.

[218] The triptych in the National Gallery.

[219] They have been published by the Arundel Society.

[220] These frescoes were begun in 1499.  It may be mentioned that in this year, on the refusal of Perugino to decorate the Cappella di S. Brizio, the Orvietans entrusted that work to Signorelli.

[221] Uffizzi and Sala del Cambio.