d years before given free gesture and perfect anatomy to his
statues.) It would be impossible to overrate the excellence and beauty
of drawing in the splendid swing of the bodies, the flexibility of the
limbs, the sinewy elasticity of the leg muscles, and above all, the
subtle suggestion of muscular movement under the loose skin of the
backs. There is here, even more than in his later painting, an
appreciation of the relative values of the muscles, and a consequent
breadth of modelling, which he lost somewhat, by over-accentuation, in
his subsequent treatment of the nude. The inequalities of the picture
betray wherein lay the painter's chief interest, for to this skilful
mastery of the difficulties of anatomy are opposed the rather childish
conception of the Pilate and the stiff action of all the clothed
figures. His apprenticeship to Pier dei Franceschi is here sufficiently
proved, not so much by any likeness of colour or of composition to "The
Flagellations," of that master, in Urbino and Borgo San Sepolero, as in
the firm, clear outlining of the nude figures, their solid modelling,
and in the broad massing of the shadows.

Even more apparent is the influence of Antonio Pollaiuolo, in the great
realism with which the subject is treated, and in such superficial
resemblances as the type of head of the executioner who binds the hands
of Christ, and the characteristic striped loin-cloths.

The Christ is one of Signorelli's most ignoble presentations of the
Saviour, and yet it seems as though he had tried to give graces which
should harmonise with a certain conception of the character--the hair,
for example, is the beautiful rippling hair of a woman, the bent head
and downcast eyes represent the gentleness of resignation, and the
attitude of the legs is intended to be graceful. But the effort to curb
his own natural instinct for pride and strength makes him strike a false
note, and his attempt to give the beauty of meekness has resulted only
in producing a mask of hypocritical inertia.

The picture was painted for the Church of Santa Maria del Mercato in
Fabriano, and this, as well as the fact of its being precisely the same
size, and with the same curved top, seems to argue that it formed
originally one picture with the Madonna, No. 281 of the same gallery,
whose _provenance_ is also from that church. Here the Virgin sits,[42]
clad in a gold garment and blue green-lined mantle, with the Child on
her knee, and floating r