Chap. V. GENTILE DA FABRIANO. 95 CHAPTER V. GENTILE DA FABRIANO. ALUNNO AND OTHER UMBRIANS. The fame of Gubbio, greatly increased in the fourteenth century by the honorable mention of Oderisio in Dante’s Divina Commedia, was dimmed in the fifteenth by the lustre which Gentile shed upon his native town of Fa briano. It chanced that, during a checquered and active life, this artist laboured in the same places and for the same patrons as Vittore Pisano. Vittore had first devoted his energies exclusively to painting; but towards the close of his days he displayed such extraordinary skill in cast ing and chiselling medallion portraits that he was eagerly sought by most of the Italian princes and chieftains of his time. At their courts he met, conversed with, and gained the friendship of, the most eminent men of the period in literature and poesy. His talents were celebrated in sonnets, or recorded in more serious prose; and, to the delight of his countrymen, his name is to be found in works of acknowledged merit, where those of his cotem poraries are entirely neglected. Amongst the cities which Vittore visited, Venice and Rome are the most important. The ducal palace in the first, the church of S. Giovanni Laterano in the second, were both adorned by his frescos. In both, Gentile da Fabriano left examples of his man ner. Praise of Gentile was doubtless often on the lips of Pisano, and thus it became familiar to Facio and Biondo of Forli.