Chap. IX. L.O SPAGNA. 305 may be compared with the Spineta Nativity, and will prove that the Virgin, child, and attendant angels are lined in both from different sides of the same cartoon. The Berlin altarpiece is an Adoration of the Kings, and was painted for Ancajano Ancajani, who lived fifteen years (1478—1503) abbot of Ferentillo near Spoleto. It was placed in the church of S. Pietro attached to that monastery, and was only removed for the purpose of being restored in the year 1700. That it should have been attributed to Raphael’s youth, is due to the Pe- ruginesque mode of its distribution and drawing, and its Raphaelesque accompaniments of type and drapery. Yet, on close inspection, its cold carefulness produces an im pression different from that of a Raphael. Purity, deli cacy, and refinement are the qualities usually assigned to the figures. 1 It would be truer to say that they are car ried out with honesty of purpose and minuteness of de tail, but with less feeling or selection than are usual even in Sanzio’s earliest performances. Their setting, and air are such as might be realized by a man without great originality of power, of the passionless diligence for which Sassoferrato was remarkable at a later period. The mould of the faces is broadly imitated from that of Raphael, but without his candour and lightness of grace; with more than his usual stiffness, but none of his sentiment. They are simple blocks without waving lines of beauty. The male heads are long in forehead and jaw, pinched and withered in features, often vulgar like those of Pinturicchio, those of females and angels are round and plump, but of an unhealthy fleshiness, unnaturally projected from the neck, with round noses and small prim mouths, a family likeness being traceable through them all, and proving conventionalism and want of vigour in the artist. The drapery is drawn together by hand, and made to fold where nature would have left Another picture quite with the im press of Spagna, is No. 135. in the .Berlin Museum, under the name of von. hi. Raphael; subject: the Saviour iu the tomb (canvass, kneepieee). 1 Kugler’s Hand-book. 20
