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tract of Stefano di Giovanni with the Minorites of Sienna for a S. Francis in majesty at S. Francesco of Borgo S. Sepolcro. 1 The picture has passed into the hands of Messrs. Lombardi at Florence. Poverty, Chastity, Obe dience, hovering above the glorified founder’s head, are not without grace or natural motion, but the attendant saints alone would prove that the Byzantine element had not vanished from Sienna in the fifteenth century. 2 The Coronation of the Virgin on the Roman gate is an old form of that subject, lacking neither religious feeling nor simplicity in its conception, but almost deprived of both in the execution. Lean puppets, with necks al most as long as their waists, wriggle rather than move in attitudes and costume alike grotesque. Grimace distorts the faces. Festoons, bedecked with borders, surcharge the skirts, and remind us of the time when Cimabue arose to set aside similar imperfections; and Sassetta appears dimly to us as the last of a religious class exhausted by sameness and repetition. 3 Yet, there is no depth so low 1 Della Valle Lettere Sanese III. 44. The signature on the pic ture runs thus: “Cristoforus Fran- cisci fei Andreas Joliannis Tanis operarius A. MCCCCXXXXIIII.” See the engraving inRosini. Della Valle further notices a crucifix in the refectory of S. Martino at Sienna ordered of Sassetta in 1433. See Vol. HI. 44. 2 Another picture in the Lombar di collection representing the Vir gin and child between six angels and two saints at the sides (injured) reminds one of the frescos of the Porta Romana. We may also mention here again the Berlin Museum panel No. 1122. assigned to Domenico di Bartolo, see note to p. 57. with reference to its upper part being more like a production of Sassetta than one by any other Siennese that we know. 3 The fresco is much injured. The Virgin bends in pious reve rence to receive the crown from the saviour, of whose head alone there are still traces. Angels and prophets and clergy attend behind the Virgin; whilst similar groups behind the Christ are partly ob literated, partly altered by damp. In the lower foreground SS. Ber nardino and Catherine of Sienna, severally head groups of saints. The whole fresco on the outside of the gate is in a recess the vault ing of which still contains a few of the angels originally painted there. The remaining notices of Sassetta’s life are short: 1427. Design for the font in S. Giovanni at Sienna (Doc. Sen. II. 244). — 1428. He is free of the painter’s guild (ib. I. 48). — 1433. Altarpiece for a private chapel in the Duomo (ib. II. 244). — 1440. Drawings for a glass win dow in the Duomo (ib. II. 198). — 1442. Colours for the Duomo (ib. II. 244). — 1444. S. Bernardino in the Hospital church of S. M. della Scala (ib. 245). — 1447. Order for the paintings of the Porta Romana
