Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/358

he painted a picture, also in tempera, of the Dead Christ, and at Città di Gastello, a Nativity of the Saviour, for San Francesco,^[1] with another in San Domenico, the subject of which is San Sebastiano.^[2] At Cortona, his native city, this master painted a Dead Christ, in the church of Santa Margherita, which belongs to the Barefooted Friars; it is accounted one of his best works.^[3] In the same city he painted three pictures for the Society of Jesus; of these that which is placed at the high altar is most admirable; the subject is the Saviour, who administers the sacrament to the apostles, when Judas places the host in the money-bag.^[4] In the Capitular Church, which is now called the Episcopate, our artist painted certain Prophets of the natural size, in fresco, for the chapel of the Sacrament: around the tabernacle, moreover, are numerous Angels erecting a pavilion, and on each side are figures, one of St. Jerome, the other of St. Thomas Aquinas. For the high altar of the same church he painted a most beautiful Assumption on panel, and the designs for the pictures in the principal window of the church were prepared by his hand; the cartoons of Signorelli being executed by Stagio Sassoli, of Arezzo. At Castiglione, in the territory of Arezzo, Luca Signorelli painted a Dead Christ, with the Maries, over the chapel of the Sacrament, and in San Francesco at Lucignano he decorated the folding doors of a press, wherein there is deposited a branch of coral, on the summit of which is formed a cross. At Siena he painted a picture for the chapel of San Cristofano, in the church of St. Agostino, wherein are

Andrea, without the Selci Gate, there is a Crucifixion, also by his hand.— Ed. Flor., 1832 -8.

1. This picture was carried off during the French invasion, nor can its present locality be ascertained.—Ibid.
2. The St. Sebastian is still in the Brozzi chapel, now called that of Bourbon del Monte. Other works of the master are also still at Cittâ di Castello.— See Mariotti, Lettere Perugine, &c., p. 274.
3. Now in the choir of the cathedral, it bears the following inscription:— “Lucas Egidii Signorelli Cortonensis, mdii.”
4. There are now but two of these pictures in the church of Gesii. The Nativity of Christ, and a conception of the Virgin: the Communion of the Apostles is in the choir of the cathedral. Lanzi also considers the last-mentioned painting one of the best works of the master.— See History of Painting, vol. i. p. 91.