to tell of happy dreams, or, according to the old superstition, the angels are whispering to the Child; the little arms are folded on the breast, and the peaceful landscape background harmonises well with the subject.”— (S. and J. H.)

The Madonna and Child, enthroned and accompanied by John the Baptist and St. Sebastian, is a beautiful example of Perugino. The group is placed under the vaulted arch resting on square pillars of which the painter was so fond. The faces of the Virgin and St. Sebastian are particularly beautiful in expression.

Perugino's splendid portrait of Francesco delle Opere, representing a clean-shaven man with bright eyes and bushy hair with a roll in his hand on which is inscribed "Timete Deum," long passed for a portrait of the painter himself. The landscape in the background is particularly fine.

Domenichino's Cardinal Agucchia is also seated in an arm-chair, wearing red robe and camail and white rochet, leaning his right hand that holds his cap on the arm of the chair, and with the left is about to lift a bell that is standing on the table near a letter.

Portraits of Federigo di Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza, by Piero della Francesca, are extraordinary works. On the back is a representation of these two personages seated in triumphal cars, the horses of which are splendidly drawn. This allegory is accompanied with complimentary

verses.

"This work is a landmark in the progress of art. It is executed with the utmost precision of drawing and minuteness and softness of method. It is remarkable for the beauty of the landscape backgrounds in which he dis

plays his knowledge of aërial perspective. These masterpieces of the artist were finished as early as 1472. They are the more interesting from the history of the persons represented. The ancestors of Federigo were the two Montefeltri, mentioned by Dante. Federigo was created Duke of Urbino by Sixtus IV., when the Pope's nephew, Giovanni della Rovere, married Federigo's second daughter. Federigo was distinguished as a soldier and as a patron of arts and letters. The depression in his nose was caused by a wound received in battle. His wife was celebrated for her learning as well as beauty. She died when only twenty-six years old."-(K. K.)

Two works by Angelo Bronzino claim attention -Bartolommeo Panciatichi and his wife. The former is standing in a gallery, full face, his left arm resting on a console, beneath which a dog is standing. His hair, beard, and moustache are blonde set off to advantage by the black cap with plume and black doublet with sleeves of cerise. The fingers of his right hand lightly rest between the leaves of a book.

His wife, Lucrezia dei Pucci, is seated in an arm-chair, her right hand resting on an open book on her lap. She wears a red dress with violet sleeves, and a pearl necklace with pendant, gold chain and silver belt.

"Bronzino painted for Panciatichi two portraits-his wife and himself-so natural that they seemed to be alive. They lacked only breath.”—(V.)

Sustermans's Galileo, representing the great astronomer, dressed in black with white hair and white moustache, was considered by his contemporaries a marvel of portraiture.

Clouet's Francis I. in armour, with green cap and white plumes and mounted on a richly capari

soned horse, and Holbein's Richard Southwell are included among the most famous portraits.

In the Gallery of Painters by themselves, the most remarkable examples are perhaps Raphael, Holbein, Van Dyck, Pourbus the Elder, Rubens, Rembrandt, Reynolds, Watts and Ingres.

Laneret's Flute Player, catalogued to Watteau, a beautiful landscape where men, women and children are amusing themselves, is one of the choice works.

Dürer's Adoration of the Magi is his first important easel-painting.

"Mary sits on the left, looking like the happiest of German mothers, with the enchantingly naïve Infant on her knees; the three Wise Men from the East in magnificent dresses glittering with gold, approach, deeply moved, and with various emotions depicted on their countenances, while the whole creation around seems to share their joyous greeting, even to the flowers and herbs, and to the great stag-beetle and two white butterflies, which are introduced after the manner of Wolgemut. The sunny

green on copse and mountain throws up the group better than the conventional nimbus could have done. The fairhaired Virgin, draped entirely in blue, with a white veil, recalls vividly the same figure in the Paumgärtner altarpiece. Aërial and linear perspectives are still imperfect, but the technical treatment of the figures is as finished as in Dürer's best pictures of the later period."—(M. T.)

In the Virgin of the Cornflower the Madonna is enveloped in a rose-coloured garment with fair hair falling on her shoulders. She holds an apple in her left hand, and with her right supports the Infant, who has a blue cornflower in his left hand.

"The Child is looking to the right with an anxious expression on His face, and the upper part of His head is extraordinarily large, while His limbs are small. The

features of the mother are noble and elevated, but without any depth of expression."-(M. T.)

Dürer's Portrait of his Father, painted in his nineteenth year, in 1490, is a remarkable work for any master at any age.

"The face and the hands, which hold a red rosary, are wonderfully life-like; the expression is one of dignified earnestness and kindly repose, with strong lines of determination about the mouth; and the eyes, small indeed, but clear and intelligent, look out upon the world with a keen glance that seems to interrogate the future. The painting is unusually broad and vigorous."-(M. T.)

The Uffizi is particularly strong in the Little Dutch Masters, the most striking specimens of which are Dow's Pancakes, Ter Borch's Lady Drinking, Steen's Family Feast and Metsu's Lady and Huntsman and Lute Player.

THE VATICAN

ROME

ON March 28, 1909, Pius X. formally opened the new picture gallery of the Vatican, the expense of which he bore personally, in the left wing of the Vatican. Of the three hundred pictures gathered here, about sixty were brought from the old Vatican Gallery (founded by Pius VII.), and the others from the Lateran Palace, the Vatican Library, and the private apartments and other rooms of the Vatican.

The greatest treasure in the collection is Raphael's Transfiguration, which has been called "the grandest picture in the world." It was ordered by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici (afterwards Clement VII.) for the Cathedral of Narbonne. Raphael was at work upon it when he died and it was hung over his couch as he lay in state, and carried in his funeral procession. In the following year Giulio Romano completed the unfinished part and the Cardinal presented the work to the Church of San Pietro in Montorio, sending in its place the Raising of Lazarus, by Sebastian del Piombo, now in the National Gallery, London (see p. 17). The Transfiguration was carried off by the French to Paris in 1797 and hung in the Louvre. When returned to Italy in 1815, it was placed in the Vatican.

"If we remove to a certain distance from it, so that the forms shall become vague, indistinct, and only the masses of colour and the light and shade perfectly distinguishable,