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Chap. X. MELANZIO. 363 ' great master, can rise above an usual mediocrity. There is nothing improbable in the suggestion that Melanzio who was a local painter of Montefalco, should have been subordinate to Vannucci, in one of his visits to that place. But the earliest pieces that can be attributed to this fourth rate workman prove him to have engrafted the Peruginesque methods on the older ones derived from Benozzo and Alunno. An altarpiece of 1488, 1 and a fresco of 1513 at Torrita 2 near Montefalco would confirm this opinion if they could be shown to have been origi nally by Melanzio. Of this there is little reason to doubt if we compare them with others of more unassailable authenticity, such as the tempera of 1498 in S. Fortunato outside Montefalco, 3 or that of 1515, at S. Leonardo in the same place. 4 The Perugian element in the first is like that observable in Tiberio d’Assisi and Bartolommeo 1 This is a panel, in five niches, with the Virgin holding the child erect on her knees, in benediction, between SS. Sebastian and Se vere, Augustin and Theresa, on gold ground. Four seraphs are placed in medallions in the span- drils. The figures, three quarters the life size, are painted poorly in tempera, of a dull yellow colour in the flesh. The heads are small and pinched, the drawing of ex tremities faulty. The S. Augustin seems a copy from Alunno. On the border one reads: “Depicta est ad onorem Mari® Virginis AD. M488. die vero penultima mens. Deeembris”. 2 S. Anthony the abbot is en throned between six saints, amongst whom are SS. Koch (much injured), Francis, Anthony of Padua (all but life size). In a lunette, Christ in the tomb, bony, and still reminiscent of Gozzoli. The drawing of the S. Anthony and saints is careful, Umbrian in character, and also recalls Benozzo, the colour tending to brownish yel low. . On the border: “Die 15. M513. Deeembris. Lassati vitio &c.” 3 Wood, tempera, figures life size, of the Virgin and child be tween SS. Anthony, Bernardino, Francis, Fortunato, Louis and Se vere. On a border: “Franciscus de Motefaleo pisit 1498”. The Vir gin is like one by Tiberio, the in fant, paltry as in Bartolommeo Ca- porali, the extremities incorrectly drawn. The outlines generally straight and broken, drapery Pe ruginesque, and the flesh of a dull sad tone, with dark shadows. 4 The Virgin adoring the child on her knee, is enthroned under a dais, attended, above, by six an gels, two of whom suspend a crown above her head. At the sides are SS. Lawrence, John the Baptist, Barbara, Anthony, and Jerom, John Evangelist, Sebas tian, Francis, Louis the King, and Cliiara (canvass, tempera', inscrib ed: “Franciscus Mel Montefalc. pinxit anno dom. millesimus quin- tegesimo decimo quinto die sep- tima septembri”. In the style of the foregoing. The colour is ear thy yellow, with little chiaroscuro.
