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Chap. V. MATTEO DA GUALDO. 119 fresco will be found in a solitary chapel on the hills outside Gubbio, S. M. della Circa near Sigillo, on the inner walls of which a Virgin and child with a dog in its arms, and a Virgin of Mercy, are depicted; and on a pilaster near the latter are syllables of his name. 1 A light reddish water-colour, on a ground of green, shadowed consequently in verde, and stippled up in lights, forms the flesh-tone of the first of these Virgins, whose square oblong face seems cast in the mould of the San- severini, whilst the usual affectation of grace, involved draperies, tenuous outline, profuse pattern ornament, and positive tints prove the painter’s Umbrian nature. In the second Virgin, the frame rivals in length and slenderness those of Giovanni Boccati, whilst the angels, who loop the cloak, might be confounded with those of the Fulginese, Bartolommeo di Tommaso, or Alunno. Pleasing heads, and pretty coifs comparatively set off a few of the females beneath the mantle, and distantly resemble those of Piei’O della Francesca in the Virgin of Mercy at Arezzo. We are struck in both men by a com mon Umbrian origin and a diligent hand, however wide we may find the distance between them as regards merit. But Matteo’s pictorial career offers a further similarity with that of Giovanni Boccati insofar that we may trace his pencil south of Gualdo, as we have traced it here north of that place, in a chapel called S. Maria in Cam- pis near Foligno, in which the decorations are by two or three hands, affected by the vicinity of Benozzo Gozzoli at Montefalco. If there, however, some obscurity and doubt may exist as to the part taken by Matteo, his sig nature authenticates a fresco in S. Caterina, or as it is more commonly called, SS. Antonio e Jacopo, of Assisi, by tapers, but certain pinnacle figures are described as worthy of preservation. 1 “Ma . . eu. pin . . . su. . . . MD. . . • .” probably “Matteus pinxit sub anno &e.” On the same wall is a Concep tion, the most defective of all these paintings, the infant a carica ture of that which Bartolommeo di Tommaso of Foligno repeated.