lli, that great master of Cortona, may be
studied to better advantage elsewhere, especially at Orvieto and in
his native city. His work in this cloister, consisting of eight
frescoes, has been much spoiled by time and restoration. Yet it can
be referred to a good period of his artistic activity (the year
1497) and displays much which is specially characteristic of his
manner. In Totila's barbaric train, he painted a crowd of fierce
emphatic figures, combining all ages and the most varied attitudes,
and reproducing with singular vividness the Italian soldiers of
adventure of his day. We see before us the long-haired followers of
Braccio and the Baglioni; their handsome savage faces; their brawny
limbs clad in the particoloured hose and jackets of that period;
feathered caps stuck sideways on their heads; a splendid swagger in
their straddling legs. Female beauty lay outside the sphere of
Signorelli's sympathy; and in the Monte Oliveto cloister he was not
called upon to paint it. But none of the Italian masters felt more
keenly, or more powerfully represented in their work, the muscular
vigour of young manhood. Two of the remaining frescoes, different
from these in motive, might be selected as no less characteristic of
Signorelli's manner. One represents three sturdy monks, clad in
brown, working with all their strength to stir a boulder, which has
been bewitched, and needs a miracle to move it from its place. The
square and powerfully outlined drawing of these figures is beyond
all praise for its effect of massive solidity. The other shows us
the interior of a fifteenth-century tavern, where two monks are
regaling themselves upon the sly. A country girl, with shapely arms
and shoulders, her upper skirts tucked round the ample waist to
which broad sweeping lines of back and breasts descend, is serving
wine. The exuberance of animal life, the freedom of attitude
expressed in this, the mainly interesting figure of the composition,
show that Signorelli might have been a great master of realistic
painting. Nor are the accessories less effective. A wide-roofed
kitchen chimney, a page-boy leaving the room by a flight of steps
which leads to the house door, and the table at which the truant
monks are seated, complete a picture of homely Italian life. It may
still be matched out of many an inn in this hill district.

Called to graver work at Orvieto, where he painted his gigantic
series of frescoes illustrating the coming of Ant