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278 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Chap. VIII. laster of the Annunciation; 1 but the chapel of the Sacrament is not the only one he decorated. He pain ted a half-length of the Virgin and child above the altar of the sacristy, and the same subject on an altar in the church, both a little less than life size, and in the same style as the large series — leaving to his as sistants other and less important commissions in different parts of Spello. 2 He had been elected in Perugia a de- 1 A ditch has been sunk outside the wall of the chapel to draw off the damp, but with very slight re sult. The annunciation is the least damaged of the series. Each subject arched at the top, in an architectural border and pilaster richly covered with grotesques. In the Nativity, the landscape and foreground are worked with almost Flemish minuteness. There are grasses and weeds on the fore ground, a bottle and pack saddle. A peacock is on the top of a ruin, the ox and the ass at the base and in front of the pent-house. The draperies are all touched up with gold. The hatching in the sha dows of yellows and blues has been blackened by damp. The base and left side of the fresco are most damaged; and some pieces in the distance and elsewhere are scaled. In the dispute, two statues are placed in the porticos at the side of the temple. The second figure to the right of the Saviour, in a grey dress, holds a scroll on which the word: “Pintorichio-”may he read. The face is not that of the painter. Baglioni is a man of fifty attempting a smile, in a purp lish dress and cap. Four little figures are in the opening of the temple. The perspective here, as in the other frescos, is good. The figures on the left side are dimmed by damp. But in addition to the natural causes of damage others are superadded. The whole chapel has been restored. The diagonals of the ceiling are covered with arabesques on gold ground. The sybils sit reading on thrones be hind which the sky is seen. On an antique altar near the Erythrean, the lines of an inscription are ille gible. The Erythrean sits reading, the European with her hands join ed in prayer, the Samian looking up. The Tiburtine prophesies in a dancing attitude. The frescos of Spello have been published by the Arundel Society. 2 Opposite the ex-convent of the Franciscans of Spello, the front of a house (No.30) is adorned with a fresco. The subject, a Virgin and child, much abraded, but re calling the style of Pinturicehio, and at all events of the Perugian school. On the hills outside Spello lies the ex-convent of S. Girolamo. In the choir of the church is a fresco of theMarriageof the Virgin, the usu al Perugian composition with a temple in the distance inscribed: “Cappela Sei Josepi.” The figures are feeble round-headed, with small circular eyes, all tinged with a pale colour without relief. Dra peries and hair are done in Pintu- ricchio’s manner; and what little shadow there is yields a reddish hue. It is a second rate fresco such as Matteo Balducci might have painted, with some character akin to that of Gerino da Pistoia. In the cloister chapel, a Nativity by a follower of Pinturicchio’s school — and ruder than the fore going, aVirgin, saints, S. Sebastian,