cafumi, has treated the same
subject with less pictorial skill and dramatic effect, but with an
earnestness and simplicity that are very touching. Colourists always
liked to introduce the sweeping lines of her white robes into their
compositions. Fra Bartolommeo, who showed consummate art by
tempering the masses of white drapery with mellow tones of brown or
amber, painted one splendid picture of the marriage of S. Catherine,
and another in which he represents her prostrate in adoration before
the mystery of the Trinity. His gentle and devout soul sympathised
with the spirit of the saint. The fervour of her devotion belonged
to him more truly than the leonine power which he unsuccessfully
attempted to express in his large figure of S. Mark. Other artists
have painted the two Catherines together--the princess of
Alexandria, crowned and robed in purple, bearing her palm of
martyrdom, beside the nun of Siena, holding in her hand the lantern
with which she went about by night among the sick. Ambrogio
Borgognone makes them stand one on each side of Madonna's throne,
while the infant Christ upon her lap extends His hands to both, in
token of their marriage.

The traditional type of countenance which may be traced in all these
pictures is not without a real foundation. Not only does there exist
at Siena, in the Church of San Domenico, a contemporary portrait of
S. Catherine, but her head also, which was embalmed immediately
after death, is still preserved. The skin of the face is fair and
white, like parchment, and the features have more the air of sleep
than death. We find in them the breadth and squareness of general
outline, and the long, even eyebrows which give peculiar calm to the
expression of her pictures. This relic is shown publicly once a year
on the 6th of May. That is the Festa of the saint, when a procession
of priests and acolytes, and pious people holding tapers, and little
girls dressed out in white, carry a splendid silver image of their
patroness about the city. Banners and crosses and censers go in
front; then follows the shrine beneath a canopy: roses and leaves of
box are scattered on the path. The whole Contrada d'Oca is decked
out with such finery as the people can muster: red cloths hung from
the windows, branches and garlands strewn about the doorsteps, with
brackets for torches on the walls, and altars erected in the middle
of the street. Troops of country-folk and townspeople and priests go
in and