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Chap. XII. CASTAGNO’S HEROES AND SYBILS. 305 and clumsy. His colour is a liquid tempera of a dull tinge, laid on without much knowledge of the harmonic keys, yellowish in flesh lights, with superposed earthy shadows rubbed in so as to allow the undertone to crop up. 1 The second crucifixion at the Angeli is in the fifth cell in the second cloister, and without the figure of the Magdalen. It exhibits an excess of vulgarity even in the Saviour, whose frame is almost an anatomical caricature. 2 In a happier mood Castagno painted, for the niches of a hall in the Villa Pandolfini at Legnaia, a series of heroes and sybils, the remnants of which have been trans ferred to canvass and taken to the depot of the Uffizi. Suiting the design of his figures to the height of the spaces, calculating the perspective of the parts according to the rules applied by Uccelli and Donatello, he devoted a niche, in the rural temple, to Pippo Spano, the patron of Masolino and victor of the Turks; to Farinata, the liberator of his country; to Niccolo Acciaiuoli, the seneschal of Naples; to Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the im mortal poets of Italy; to Esther, Tomiris, and the sybil of Cumae. A frieze crowned the lintels of the niches, and a correct perspective might allow the spectator to caress the illusion that the hall was honoured by the presence of a select and celebrated company. 3 To gain a correct impression of them, indeed, these figures should be seen in their original places, where their supernatural size, the bold freedom of their attitudes, and something of the classical in their appearance would give them still greater value. Pippo Spano, in a defiant attitude, bending the steel of his rapier in his two hands, and with legs apart, challenges the world and seems capable of victory. 1 This mode of colouring may be seen also in the works of Piero della Francesca. 2 This crucifixion is blackened in the shadows by damp. An en graving of it is in the Ettruria Pittrice. Kieha (Chiose. Vol. VIII. p. 174.) notices its existence. 3 The niches were rectangular, formed by pilasters with cornice and architraves. The nine figures above enumerated form but a part of a series which occupied the four sides of the hall. They were the ornament of otte side only. The villa Pandolfini at Legnaia is now a farm belonging to the Rinuccini family. 20 VOL. II.
