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Updated: June 12, 2025
Opposite on L. wall is 1525, a predella: Birth of the Virgin, considered by Crowe and Cavalcaselle an excellent example of Luca Signorelli's art. R. wall, 1321, the Visitation, and 1322, an intimate domestic scene, painted with much tenderness, a bibulous old Florentine magistrate bending to embrace his little grandson, are masterly works by Domenico Ghirlandaio. 1296, Virgin and Child and St.
The Christ is one of Signorelli's most ignoble presentations of the Saviour, and yet it seems as though he had tried to give graces which should harmonise with a certain conception of the character the hair, for example, is the beautiful rippling hair of a woman, the bent head and downcast eyes represent the gentleness of resignation, and the attitude of the legs is intended to be graceful.
This unfortunate repainting, which has also evidently included part of the Virgin's face, was more probably due to the monks' dislike of Signorelli's type of child than to any damage by weather, for it would be strange that a picture, otherwise so well preserved, should be injured by damp nowhere but in the part most protected by reason of its central position.
It has naturally suffered much from the process of cleaning away the later draperies, and much of the under-painting is exposed, but enough remains of its original beauty to rank it as the best of Signorelli's easel pictures. Undoubtedly of the same date is the "Madonna," No. 74 of the Uffizi Gallery.
It is difficult to say which of the masters designed this exceedingly beautiful decoration, but it is most effective, and well-calculated to accentuate the life of the fine curves in the vaulting. These groups of Signorelli's are noble and impressive paintings, in technique strong and vigorous.
At length he stands before Pluto's throne, the seat of the God of the sacre rappresentazioni, the rugged rock-seat surrounded by the monstrous demons of Signorelli's tondo . Here in presence of the grim ravisher and of his pale consort, in whom the passionate pleading of the Thracian bard stirs long-forgotten memories of spring and of the plains of Enna, Orfeo's song receives adequate expression.
We return to the L. wall and note 1526, Signorelli's Adoration of the Magi; further on are 1154, an excellent Fra Bartolomeo, The Holy Family, and 1153, The Annunciation, a graceful and suave composition, original in treatment, by the same master.
It would be wrong to ascribe too much to the immediate influence of the elder over the younger artist at any rate in so far as the frescoes of the Chapel of S. Brizio may have determined the creation of the Sistine. Yet Vasari left on record that "even Michelangelo followed the manner of Signorelli, as any one may see." Undoubtedly, Buonarroti, while an inmate of Lorenzo de' Medici's palace at Florence, felt the power of Luca's Madonna with the naked figures in the background; the leading motive of which he transcended in his Doni Holy Family. Probably at an early period he had before his eyes the bold nudities, uncompromising designs, and awkward composition of Luca's so-called School of Pan. In like manner, we may be sure that during his first visit to Rome he was attracted by Signorelli's solemn fresco of Moses in the Sistine. These things were sufficient to establish a link of connection between the painter of Cortona and the Florentine sculptor. And when Michelangelo visited the Chapel of S. Brizio, after he had fixed and formed his style (exhibiting his innate force of genius in the Piet
Most of the figures are of Signorelli's usual powerful build, one, however, is an emaciated youth with little on his bones but skin, many are skeletons. To these last he has given a pathetic look of ecstasy, which is wonderfully expressive, considering it is obtained only by means of eyeless sockets and grinning jaw-bones.
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