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Chap. Vi. FIORENZO DI LORENZO. 157 lights, leaving still upon the eye an impression as of a somewhat raw and unpolished surface. As a wall-painting, this is one of the most important that has been recovered in our day. It is not less interesting, and only less au thentic, than the altarpiece in the sacristy of S. Francesco at Perugia, the sides of which, containing S. Paul and S. Peter, have been removed from their natural eonnection with a lunette representing the Virgin in glory amongst angels, and have been placed side by side with others by a different hand. These panels are as fine as those of the Perugian Academy; and they are signed on the hems of the tunics with the words: “Florentius Lauren . . . ti pinsit MCCCCLXXXVII.” 1 The lunette which they supported, is now above the two mutilated angels by Bonfigli, of which a description has been given. Its semicircular field is covered by a half length Virgin grasping the naked infant Christ, in a glory of seraphs’ heads, and attended by two angels. The in fluence of Perugino is naturally more sensible in 1487 than it was twelve years before, and is, in spite of still defective type, very clear in the pleasing group of the Madonna. The child, improved in form and motion, is drawn on the principle observable at a later period in Pinturicchio. No single angels by Fiorenzo have more grace and feeling, or better Peruginesque draperies, than those at the Virgin’s side looking up and with arms crossed on their breasts. 2 Fiorenzo evidently struggled hard to keep pace with thfe progress which was taking place in the art of his age, and this struggle is evident not merely here, but more markedly still in a fresco of the Virgin and child attended by two angels; a lunette in the Sala del Censo at the Public Palace of Perugia. It is reminiscent of 1 The drapery of S. Peter is a little full and involved. 2 They remind one of those in Perugino’s Madonna, (round) lately at the Hague, now (No. 442) at the Louvre. The three panels above described are in good pre servation, and are now united without a number in the gallery of Perugia.
