gels. In exceptional cases he imparted energy and life to saints; he tried to assimilate some of the qualities hitherto denied to his countrymen, in foreshortening the human body; he drew minutely and carefully. His Um brian frame was thus changed and improved by contact with Benozzo; but this Florentine was not calculated to raise the standard of taste in any sense; his trite con ceptions suggested nothing grandiose, his vulgarity pre pared nothing refined, his imitative fibre was plastic to receive, not strung to convey. Alunno therefore did not excel any more than his predecessors in balance of com position, in correctness of drawing, or in flexibility of flesh. His figures, on the contrary, are often rigid, wooden and vicious in form; his faces are frequently repulsive; they abound in coarseness and grimace. A marked feature in him is the brown tinge of his colour, verde or reddish in shadow, ruddy in light; Siennese in fact in ap pearance, as it is in the method by which its peculiar stamp is attained; but withal in keeping as regards the general harmony. Tradition assigns to Bai’tolommeo di Tommaso the title of Alunno’s first teacher, and a comparison of the two men confirms the common belief. Educated in a local atelier, imbibing as an alterative something of Benozzo, isiccolo is an Umbro-Florentine, and the true repre sentative of the art of Foligno. Without attributing to him the exaggerated importance which he is made to bear, history may admit that he was one of those who prepared the way for others of more note. His types, impressed by Vannucci with a new elegance, were of influence in the rise of the Perugian school which re ceived its finish from Raphael. Alunno’s first altarpiece at Diruta has been deprived of its sides and predella, but the Virgin, attended by •SS. Francis and Bernardino, has already the character common to the complex of the master’s works. The whole piece, when perfect, was no doubt an improve ment on previous ones at Foligno, and we may con-