Magistrates' Chapel. I
refer to the Virgin appearing to St. Bernard, now in the Munich
Gallery. The theme was a favourite one at this period of Italian art,
for it has been treated with great beauty by Filippino Lippi in his
painting in the Badia at Florence. The Munich picture was destined by
our master for S. Spirito at Florence, and was acquired (in 1829) by
King Ludwig of Bavaria from the Capponi family, who held the rights
over the chapel where it hung. As in Filippino's rendering, the
monastic saint is seated in study or adoration, and looks up, with a
startled gesture, to see the Virgin enter with a train of lovely
angels; but what Filippino fails to equal--even with his delicious
angels, who might be taken from Florentine urchins--is the sense of
tranquil beauty which comes to us in these figures of the Perugian
master, and is continued in that wonderful sweep of distant landscape
seen through the open colonnade. A study for this fine painting is
among the drawings in the Uffizi Gallery.

[Illustration: PLATE VI.--FRANCESCO DELLE OPERE

(In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence)

An interesting portrait, once thought a self-portrait of the master,
but now considered to be of Francesco delle Opere. A powerful face,
small dark eyes, a well-cut nose, and thick bull-neck. We see that
Perugino was a fine portraitist of men, both in this and his genuine
self-portrait (in the Sala del Cambio) and the two Vallombrosan monks
in the Florence Academy. On the back of this picture is inscribed:
1494 D'Luglio Pietro Perugino Pinse Franco del Ope (i.e. delle
Opere).]

I have already had occasion to mention the great Crucifixion of S.
Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi (completed 1496), and a very similar
treatment of this subject appears in a later Crucifixion painted for
the Convent of S. Jerome in Florence, and now in the Accademia of that
city. Here, in the three figures introduced, the Christ and the
Virgin mother are almost reproduced from those in the larger fresco of
S. Maria Maddalena, but are coarser and more careless in the painting.
The city here in the distance has been traced to be Florence, and the
date suggested is about 1498. Closer yet to this central date of the
Perugian master's work is the great Vallombrosa "Assumption" (dated
1500); but this very probably succeeded immediately in order of time
to the Sala del Cambio frescoes, and therefore I leave it for the
moment to speak of the earlier, but most important, commissi