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According to Vasari he was Fra Angelico's master, but that is now considered doubtful, and yet the three little scenes from the life of Christ in the predella of this picture are nearer Fra Angelico in spirit and charm than any, not by a follower, that I have seen.
Soon I was conscious that my mother, Sleaford, and Wilderspin were standing by my side, that Wilderspin's hand was laid on my arm, and that I was pointing at the predella pointing and muttering, 'She lives! She is saved. My mother led me into the other studio, and I stood before the great picture.
Baldassarre Peruzzi of Siena, an excellent painter, could never have his fill of praising it, and I myself, one day that I saw it uncovered in his company, while passing through Siena, was struck with astonishment by it, as I also was by the five little scenes that are in the predella, painted with distemper in a judicious and beautiful manner.
Afterwards, in S. Stefano al Ponte Vecchio, on the predella of the high-altar, he made some stories of S. Stephen, with so great lovingness that it is not possible to see either more gracious or more beautiful figures, even if they were done in miniature.
And for the high-altar of the Church of S. Pietro, an abbey of Black Friars in Perugia, he painted a large panel containing the Ascension, with the Apostles below gazing up to Heaven; in the predella of which panel are three stories, wrought with much diligence namely, that of the Magi, the Baptism of Christ, and His Resurrection.
It still remains in its beautiful original frame, in the gables of which is painted an "Annunciation," and below, on each side, three half figures of Saints by some assistant, who was not even a pupil of Signorelli, but obviously a follower of Niccolò da Foligno. The predella contains five scenes.
At length I joined the others, who were standing before the easel, looking at the predella which, as Wilderspin again took care to tell us, had been removed from the famous picture of 'Faith and Love' we were about to see in the next room 'the culmination and final expression of the Renascence of Wonder in Art.
He gives the stately march of an army, as in the Umbertide predella and the Monte Oliveto fresco; the writhings of innumerable figures, like heaps of coiled serpents, as in the "Damnation" of Orvieto; the rush of a violent mob stirred by a common impulse, as in the Florence and Cortona "Betrayals."
As colour these are remarkably fine and are treated with more care and less rapidity than Signorelli usually gave to predella work, while retaining the same breadth and freedom of general effect. "The Annunciation," with its beautiful perspective, is one of his best compositions of this subject, in which he is always so successful.
Connected with these by the same qualities of breadth of treatment, and almost modern impressionism in the conception of the scene, are two compartments of a predella, belonging to Mr Benson in London, representing "The Dispute by the Way," and "The Supper at Emmaus."
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