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Chap. XI. PERUZZI. 387 before him had left specimens of their talent there;— Piero della Francesca who had competed with old Bramante, 1 Signorelli, and Della Gatta. 2 But the author of beautiful works like these, which are so clearly the forerunners of others in the Farnesina, is a painter of the time of Ju lius the Second. 3 They show the taste of a man impressed with the beauties of the antique, and with the hardihood, the power, and precision of one familiar with the division of architectural spaces. The frame-work is on gold ground, into which four medallions imitating bronze are let in, the rest being monochrome in various forms simulating bas- reliefs of Greek skirmishes, children, and allegorical im personations. Peruzzi’s share, if it be not incorrect to assign the portion we have just examined to him, is richer and better than that which the aids under Sanzio’s orders carried out in the spring of the angles, the latter being on a simple yellow ground, whilst the former is on gold. A long and slender figure of abundance, dancing on a cloud in one of the rhomboids though obviously derived from the classic in its pose, action, drapery, and style of nude, is executed with that tendency to bony articulations and extremities peculiar to a Siennese. The mould of the face in its circling of falling locks is not without a re miniscence of Bazzi, whilst the flowing dress is rendered in the mode derived by Peruzzi from the Lombard and from Pinturicchio. 4 Two children, sitting above the name of Julius the Second, exhibit similar maxims of art, and a raw reddish tinge of colour. The skirmishes in mono chrome are from the antique which, it is w r ell known, Peruzzi was led to study with unusual industry in Borne. Raphael’s forbearance in preserving these masterpieces, is 1 Vas. IV. 7. 4 The figure, in waving drapery, * II). VIII. 13. 14. holds a cornucopia in the right, and pours water from a cup in her 3 On the vaulting above the Li- raised left hand. The drapery is beration of S. Peter: “Julius Pont. J cast in a manner derived from Max.”, on that above the Miracle j Bazzi and Pinturicchio. ofBolsena, in a frame : “Julius II”. ! 25*
