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markable as affording evidence of the progress made by Perugian art, by their dignified mien, finished drawing, and careful execution. The Evangelist looking up with a foreshortened face, looks as if it were by Pinturicchio, and tells of an effort for the attainment of an ex pression of inspiration. A successful rendering of action is coupled with some squareness of shape in the frame, the head, the nose and, close eyebrows. One characteristic series of traits may be discerned in all the figures. They assume an aged look in conse quence of the wrinkled aspect given to a thin casing of flesh that seems insufficiently to pad the bones. The hands are well drawn, but cramped in the Umbrian fashion. The system of colouring is throughout the same, though slightly altered by age and by repeated var nishing. 1 Fiorenzo di Lorenzo was one of the Decemvirs of Pe rugia when the commission for this altarpieee was in trusted to him. 2 That he was then of mature age and experience, is proved as much by the office to which he was elected, as by the success which he had achieved. He had, however, not only furnished the picture of S. Maria Nuova, but many pieces in addition, of which some are preserved in the Perugian Aca demy; eight half lengths of saints in the medallions of a predella; 3 a meagre S. Sebastian, in which the root 1 If more detail should be requir ed, one might add, the S. Peter is a fine figure, enveloped in too copious drapery. The S. Benedict is equally good, with the details of hair and beard minutely indicated, the lower part slightly damaged by rotting of the coloured surface. The S. Francis is dignified in mien with a face of a type, such as might become an habitual ascetic, the drapery not without style. The S. John holds a book in his left hand and a pen in his right; his red mantle is partly discolour ed; his blue tunic adorned with embroidery on the hems, after the Perugian fashion. 2 Mariotti, ub. sup. 81. 3 SS. Michael,Bernardino, Louis of Toulouse, Francis, Chiara, An thony of Padua, and Jerom peni tent, now No. 50, gallery of Pe rugia.
