after him, insomuch that since then they have found easy the
difficulties of that manner; wherefore I do not marvel that the
works of Luca were ever very highly extolled by Michelagnolo, nor
that in certain parts of his divine Judgment, which he made in the
chapel, he should have deigned to avail himself in some measure of
the inventions of Luca, as he did in the angels, the demons, the
division of the Heavens, and other things, in which Michelagnolo
himself imitated Luca's method, as all may see. In this work Luca
portrayed himself and many of his friends; Niccolo, Paolo, and
Vitelozzo Vitelli, Giovan Paolo and Orazio Baglioni, and others
whose names are not known. In the Sacristy of S. Maria at Loreto he
painted in fresco the four Evangelists, the four Doctors, and other
saints, all very beautiful; and for this work he was liberally
rewarded by Pope Sixtus.

It is said that a son of his, most beautiful in countenance and in
person, whom he loved dearly, was killed at Cortona; and that Luca,
heart-broken as he was, had him stripped naked, and with the
greatest firmness of soul, without lamenting or shedding a tear,
portrayed him, to the end that, whenever he might wish, he might be
able by means of the work of his own hands to see that which nature
had given him and adverse fortune had snatched away.

Being then summoned by the said Pope Sixtus to work in the chapel of
his Palace in competition with many other painters, he painted
therein two scenes, which are held the best among so many; one is
Moses declaring his testament to the Jewish people on having seen
the Promised Land, and the other is his death.

[Illustration: THE LAST JUDGMENT

(_Detail, after the fresco by =Luca Signorelli=. Orvieto: Duomo_)

_Anderson_]

Finally, having executed works for almost every Prince in Italy, and
being now old, he returned to Cortona, where, in those last years of
his life, he worked more for pleasure than for any other reason, as
one who, being used to labour, neither could nor would stay idle. In
this his old age, then, he painted a panel for the Nuns of S.
Margherita at Arezzo, and one for the Company of S. Girolamo, which
was paid for in part by Messer Niccolo Gamurrini, Doctor of Laws and
Auditor of the Ruota,[9] who is portrayed from life in that
panel, kneeling before the Madonna, to whom he is being presented by
a S. Nicholas who is in the same panel; there are also S. Donatus
and S. Stephen, and lower down a n