ss of his early life, the astuteness of
his intellect, and the worldliness of his aims, contrast with the
singularly disinterested character of the saint on whom he conferred
the highest honours of the Church. But he accomplished by diplomacy
and skill what Catherine had begun. If she was instrumental in
restoring the Popes to Rome, he ended the schism which had clouded
her last days. She had preached a crusade; he lived to assemble the
armies of Christendom against the Turks, and died at Ancona, while
it was still uncertain whether the authority and enthusiasm of a
pope could steady the wavering counsels and vacillating wills of
kings and princes. The middle ages were still vital in S. Catherine;
Pius II. belonged by taste and genius to the new period of
Renaissance. The hundreds of the poorer Sienese who kneel before S.
Catherine's shrine prove that her memory is still alive in the
hearts of her fellow-citizens; while the gorgeous library of the
cathedral, painted by the hand of Pinturicchio, the sumptuous palace
and the Loggia del Papa designed by Bernardo Rossellino and Antonio
Federighi, record the pride and splendour of the greatest of the
Piccolomini. But honourable as it was for Pius to fill so high a
place in the annals of his city; to have left it as a poor
adventurer, to return to it first as bishop, then as pope: to have a
chamber in its mother church adorned with the pictured history of
his achievements for a monument, and a triumph of Renaissance
architecture dedicated to his family, _gentilibus suis_--yet we
cannot but feel that the better part remains with S. Catherine,
whose prayer is still whispered by children on their mother's knee,
and whose relics are kissed daily by the simple and devout.

Some of the chief Italian painters have represented the incidents of
S. Catherine's life and of her mystical experience. All the pathos
and beauty which we admire in Sodoma's S. Sebastian at Florence, are
surpassed by his fresco of S. Catherine receiving the stigmata. This
is one of several subjects painted by him on the walls of her chapel
in San Domenico. The tender unction, the sweetness, the languor, and
the grace which he commanded with such admirable mastery, are all
combined in the figure of the saint falling exhausted into the arms
of her attendant nuns. Soft undulating lines rule the composition;
yet dignity of attitude and feature prevails over mere loveliness.
Another of Siena's greatest masters, Bec