full of energy and
determination.

Four years at least, Signorelli laboured at these frescoes, although not
consecutively, as we shall presently see. He had with him as assistant
his son Polidoro,[17] and perhaps Girolamo Genga, and other pupils. He
was apparently on friendly terms with the authorities, of one of whom,
the treasurer Niccolo Francesco, he painted a portrait, side by side
with his own above mentioned. It is on a brick or tile, on the back of
which is a flattering inscription, evidently composed by Niccolo
himself, in which he speaks of Signorelli as "worthy of comparison with
Apelles."[18]

Yet, notwithstanding this friendship with the treasurer, he could not
get the money due to him, and it required the intervention of no less a
person than Guidobaldo of Urbino, in 1506, to obtain it for him. A
letter from the Prince is preserved in the Orvieto archives,[19] in
which he writes: "Loving Maestro Luca di Cortona as I do, in no common
measure, for his ability and rare talents, I can refuse him no possible
favour in all that he may require of me," and goes on to beg the
authorities for their love to him, to pay their debt to the painter,
"which assuredly will be to me the greatest favour."

[Illustration: [_Cathedral, Cortona_

THE DEPOSITION]

Even in fulfilling so arduous an undertaking as these great frescoes
Luca did not abandon his magistrate's work in his own city, and during
the time, was serving both on the General Council and as one of the
Priori. In 1502, moreover, he found time to paint for his Cathedral at
Cortona the beautiful "Deposition," in which is a repetition of the
Pieta of the Capella Nuova. The realism and pathos of this dead Christ
are so convincing as to have given rise to the legend that it was
painted from the body of his son, who died, or was killed, in this year.
Vasari thus relates the incident: Luca had a son, "beautiful in face and
person, whom he loved most dearly," killed in Cortona, whereupon,
"overwhelmed with grief as he was, he had the body stripped, and with
the greatest fortitude of soul, without tears or lamentation, he made a
drawing of it, in order to have always before his eyes ... what Nature
had given him, and cruel Fate had snatched away."[20] This son, Antonio,
probably a painter also, must have been a man of mature years at the
time of his death, for he was already married to a second wife. The
story has taken hold of the fancy of Signorelli's biographers