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Chap. X. FRANCESCO DA TOLENTINO. 355 like Pinturicehio’s in the altarpiece of 1508 at S. Andrea of Spello; but the two infant angels on the marble plat form below are in the spirit of those placed by Bertucci in his picture of 1506. The glassy raw tones are like wise similar to those of the Faventine who jumbles in a lifeless cento, Pinturicchio, Spagna, and Palmezzano. The spread of Perugian art was not confined, however, to Umbria or the Marches. To the South it went as far as Naples; to the North it touched the Alps. In the refectory of S. Maria la Nuova at Naples, an Umbrian composer, with slight power as a draughtsman or a colourist, has bequeathed to us a whole series of frescos, which by some strange caprice or error have been given to the Donzelli. In a lunette, the Virgin receives the crown from the Redeemer, in the midst of angels. In a lower course, the Virgin and child are adored by the Magi, in the presence of a numerous suite; and saints of the Franciscan order kneel or stand at the sides of the principal scene. Beneath this, the Annunciation, and the Nativity fill the compartments at the side of a door. The spirit of the composition is that of Pinturicchio, the treat ment as rude as anything produced by Tiberio d’Assisi. 1 But the artist is neither of these. His hand, or at least that of one intimately connected with him is to be found in a more hasty and unskilfully treated Pieth, with an Adoration of the Magi, and numerous medallions beneath it, an altarpiece in a chapel of the convent-church of Liveri, two miles from Nola. Some of the figures seem repetitions of those in the Adoration at Naples, the style of drawing and the colouring being equally, if not more, defective. The interest of this panel is great, because a 1 The fresco is injured. A large flaw cuts a portion of the Virgin and child in the Adoration; and the drapery of the kneeling king is re painted. There is also a vertical flaw in the Nativity. Amongst the kneeling friars at the sides of the adoration are (left) SS. Francis, llernardino, and Anthony of Padua; (right) S. Buonaventura and others. Dominici who describes these wall- paintings, has discovered that the head of the third king is a portrait of Alphonso the II.! The charac ter and mould of the slendep figu res are ugly, the outlines hard and black, the colour brown, red, som bre, and flat. 23*
