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Chap. VIII. BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO. 279 cemvir in succession to Vannucci, and took office on the 1 st of April 1501; 1 so that either he finished the frescos before that date, or after his retirement from office, on the l sl of June. Shortly after their completion, Pinturicchio was invited to Sienna by Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini to prepare for the decoration of the library in the Duomo. Ever since the elevation of iEneas Sylvius to the pa pal chair under the name of Pius the Second, the Sien nese had treated the family of Piccolomini with excep tional liberality. The interdiction which excluded all nobles from the magistracy, had been raised in their fa vour. Their wealth was great, their influence para mount; and a clever propensity on their part to rise in the highest preferments of the church, expanded that influence alike over Rome and Sienna. Francesco Piccolomini, the nephew of iEneas Sylvius, had lived for a long time at Rome where his palace, near that of the Orsini, was ce lebrated for containing the antique group of the three Graces. 2 As early as 1485 he erected a chapel in the Duomo of Sienna, and lined it with Ligurian marbles quarried and carved expressly for him by the Milanese Andrea Fusina. 3 Michael Angelo received a commis sion, in 1501, for fifteen statues, of Christ, the apostles, and two angels, for its internal ornament. 4 By and other figures — half ruined fresco in a ground floor chapel. Near S. Girolamo, a room, of old sacristy to the church of S. Andrea, hut now a shop for the sale of wood belonging to the ex-convent, con tains a Virgin adoring the infant on her knee between SS. Jerom and Sebastian, — a common fresco of the Perugian school in the mixed style of Pinturicchio and Spagna. In the cloister, further, a S. Se bastian of which the head alone re mains — also a Virgin, child, and S. Roch, coarse and reminiscent of Tiberio d’ Assisi. 1 Mariotti. ub. sup. 218. 2 Albertini (opusc ub. sup.) says “Dom. rev. Francisci Piccolominei Card. Sen. non longe est a prmdi- cta (palace of the Orsini) in qua erant statu® gratiorum positse.” 3 See a letter from Platina to Lorenzo de’ Medici recommending Andrea and alluding to this work, and note to the same in Doc. Sen. II. 376. and see the will of Fran cesco Piccolomini in Pungileoni’s Raphael from which it appears the chapel was allotted to Andrea for 2000 florins of gold (p. 59). 4 The allotment is published in full in Doc. Sen. Ill, 19 and fol*.