the year 1463, a
Madonna that was a very praiseworthy example of the work of those times.
Liberale imitated the manner of Jacopo Bellini, for when a young man,
while the said Jacopo was painting the Chapel of S. Niccolo at Verona,
he gave his attention under Bellini to the studies of design in such
thorough fashion that, forgetting all that he had learned from Vincenzio
di Stefano, he acquired the manner of Bellini and retained it ever
after.

The first paintings of Liberale were in the Chapel of the Monte della
Pieta in S. Bernardino, in his native city; and there, in the principal
picture, he painted a Deposition from the Cross, with certain Angels,
some of whom have in their hands the Mysteries (for so they are called)
of the Passion, and all with their weeping faces show grief at the Death
of the Saviour. Very natural, in truth, are these figures, as are other
works of the same kind by this master, who strove to show in many places
that he was able to paint weeping countenances. This may also be seen in
S. Anastasia, a church of Friars of S. Dominic, likewise in Verona,
where he painted a Dead Christ with the Maries mourning for Him on the
pediment of the Chapel of the Buonaveri; and he executed many pictures
in the same manner of painting as the work mentioned above, which are
dispersed among the houses of various gentlemen in Verona.

In the same chapel he painted a God the Father surrounded by many Angels
who are playing instruments and singing, with three figures on either
side--S. Peter, S. Dominic, and S. Thomas Aquinas on one side, and S.
Lucia, S. Agnese, and another female Saint on the other; but the first
three are much the finer, being executed in a better manner and with
more relief. On the main wall of that chapel he painted Our Lady, with
the Infant Christ marrying S. Catharine, the Virgin-Martyr; and in this
work he made a portrait of Messer Piero Buonaveri, the owner of the
chapel. Around this group are some Angels presenting flowers, with some
heads that are smiling, executed with such grace in their gladness, that
they prove that he was able to paint a smiling face as well as he had
painted tears in other figures. In the altar-piece of the same chapel he
painted S. Mary Magdalene in the air, supported by some Angels, with S.
Catharine below--a work which was held to be very beautiful. On the
altar of the Madonna in the Church of S. Maria della Scala, belonging to
the Servite Friars, he executed th