ed the skin from many corpses to see the anatomy
beneath."[7] He was, in fact, the great anatomical student among the
Quattrocento artists; and, having the same tastes, it was natural that
to his workshop Signorelli should turn, in order to satisfy his own
craving for knowledge of the structure of bones and muscles. The
internal evidence of his paintings warrants this supposition, but there
is no record of any residence in Florence, beyond the announcement of
Vasari, that he went there after his visit to Siena, not at all as a
student, but as a fully-fledged painter, making gifts of his pictures to
his friend and patron, Lorenzo dei Medici. His work, however, proves so
incontestably the training of Pollaiuolo, and shows so close an
acquaintance with Florentine works of art, that we may safely presume
the greater part of his youth, after leaving the studio of Pier dei
Franceschi, to have been passed in Florence as pupil or assistant of
Antonio.

It is a wide leap from these days of study to the beginning of his
citizen's life in Cortona, when, a man of thirty-eight, he first settled
down as a burgher discharging important duties there, but it would be
idle to attempt to fill the gap, and only one document exists to help in
any way to bridge it over. This is a commission from the Commune of
Citta di Castello, dated 1474,[8] requiring Signorelli to paint, over
some older frescoes in their Tower, a large "Madonna and Saints," but,
unfortunately the work itself no longer exists, for what time and
neglect had spared, the earthquake of 1789 completely destroyed. We may
presume that before 1479 he painted the important frescoes for the
Church of the Holy House at Loreto, since in that year he was first
appointed to the municipal offices in Cortona, which necessitated an
almost constant residence there for the next three years, as the
documents of election show.[9] These numerous papers (for the most part
discovered through the efforts of Signor Girolamo Mancini, and published
in his "Notizie"), are preserved in the archives of Cortona, and form
the chief evidence of the painter's whereabouts up to the end of his
long life. They record, first, his appointment in the autumn of 1479 to
the Council of XVIII., and to the Conservatori degli Ordinamente,[10] in
the following spring to the Priori, and in the summer to the General
Council, and they continue with few interruptions up to the very day of
his death. They decide for us the s