Catherine. Here more than anywhere else, more
even than at Saronno or Lugano, do we feel the true distinction
of Luini--his unrivalled excellence as a colourist, his power over
pathos, the refinement of his feeling, and the peculiar beauty of his
favourite types. The chapel was decorated at the expense of a Milanese
advocate, Francesco Besozzi, who died in 1529. It is he who is
kneeling, grey-haired and bareheaded, under the protection of S.
Catherine of Alexandria, intently gazing at Christ unbound from the
scourging pillar. On the other side stand S. Lawrence and S. Stephen,
pointing to the Christ and looking at us, as though their lips were
framed to say: 'Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto
his sorrow.' Even the soldiers who have done their cruel work, seem
softened. They untie the cords tenderly, and support the fainting
form, too weak to stand alone. What sadness in the lovely faces of S.
Catherine and Lawrence! What divine anguish in the loosened limbs
and bending body of Christ; what piety in the adoring old man! All the
moods proper to this supreme tragedy of the faith are touched as in
some tenor song with low accompaniment of viols; for it was Luini's
special province to feel profoundly and to express musically. The very
depth of the Passion is there; and yet there is no discord.

Just in proportion to this unique faculty for yielding a melodious
representation of the most intense moments of stationary emotion, was
his inability to deal with a dramatic subject. The first episode of S.
Catherine's execution, when the wheel was broken and the executioners
struck by lightning, is painted in this chapel without energy and with
a lack of composition that betrays the master's indifference to his
subject. Far different is the second episode when Catherine is about
to be beheaded. The executioner has raised his sword to strike. She,
robed in brocade of black and gold, so cut as to display the curve of
neck and back, while the bosom is covered, leans her head above
her praying hands, and waits the blow in sweetest resignation. Two
soldiers stand at some distance in a landscape of hill and meadow; and
far up are seen the angels carrying her body to its tomb upon Mount
Sinai. I cannot find words or summon courage to describe the beauty
of this picture; its atmosphere of holy peace, the dignity of its
composition, the golden richness of its colouring. The most tragic
situation has here again been alchemised