210 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Chap. VII. press. He did not attempt to introduce any fundamental changes into the Nativity, which in his eyes had already been perfected in the altarpiece of the Albani Villa, and he merely substituted two shepherds for the angels be tween the Virgin and S. Joseph, adding three seraphim in song in the heaven. He went confessedly 1 on the prin ciple that a composition which had once been received with applause might bo admired again in a repetition, and thus throughout his lifetime the Nativity received little alteration at his hands. Whenever he was required to paint that episode, he took out the old cartoon and applied it afresh, instructing his pupils, no doubt, to think meanwhile of the. original at the Cambio or else where; and so the churches of S. Francesco of Monte- falco and S. Francesco al Monte of Perugia were adorned without much trouble to himself. The Transfiguration might have afforded him an occasion for displaying qualities exceptionally eminent in the Pieta of S. Chiara, if succoss had not already blunted his ener gies in the conception of new forms of distribution. His Christ, erect on the clouds, with a breeze playing grace fully in the draperies, listens full of serene dignity to the words, whilst Moses and Elias stoop in humble prayer at the sides of his glory; but the disproportion between these and the wondering apostles below is not so pardon able in an artist of Perugino’s time as it would be in one of the fourteenth century, and the crouching of the recumbent Peter is too affected even for Vannucci. Yet, this transfiguration also was preserved for future use and transposed with slight diversity into a picture at S. Maria Nuova of Perugia. Still, we should not forget that the Nativity and Transfiguration, like their com panions at the Cambio, are admirable for the brilliancy of their colour, the feeling and freshness transfused into the figures, and the excellence of the handling. In the 1 Vns.'iri VI. 47.
