Page:Cyclopedia of painters and paintings (IA cyclopediaofpain04cham).pdf/203

association with these masters. According to Vasari, his first work (1472) was the decoration of the chapel of S. Barbara, in S. Lorenzo at Arezzo, no longer extant. The first certain notice of him is at Città di Castello, in November, 1474, as occupied in painting the now destroyed colossal figures of SS. Jerome and Paul on the exterior of the tower of the City Hall. Of the next four years we know nothing. Vasari tells us that he painted at Siena, and after finishing a work at S. Agostino went to Florence to study dead and living masters, and was employed by Lorenzo de' Medici; but the altarpiece at S. Agostino was not painted until 1498, six years after Lorenzo's death. During an earlier visit to Florence, he perhaps painted the School of Pan for Lorenzo, now in the possession of the Marchese Corsi. His first great works still extant are supposed to be the frescos in the S. Casa at Loreto, which betray Florentine influence and the assistance of Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, whom Signorelli probably knew at Arezzo in 1472, and by whom he was called to Loreto between 1476 and 1479. Here Signorelli reveals his identity in the Apostles, Church Fathers, and Evangelists, the Conversion of St. Paul, and the Unbelieving Thomas. About the beginning of September, 1479, he returned to Cortona, where he was elected one of the priors in the following February. The date of Signorelli's fresco of the History of Moses, in the Sistine Chapel, is unknown; but as he was commissioned to paint it by Sixtus IV., who died in 1484, it must have been executed before that year. To this time also belongs an altarpiece of the Virgin and Saints, painted for the Vannucci Chapel, in the Cathedral at Perugia. In the year 1491 he painted an Annunciation for the Chapel of S. Carlo, in the Cathedral at Volterra, and a picture of the Madonna and Saints, now in the Public Gallery of that city. Being highly esteemed as an artist at Florence, Signorelli was made a member of the committee of artists appointed in 1491 to sit in judgment on designs sent in for the construction of the façade of the Cathedral. In 1493 and 1494 he painted an Adoration of the Magi and a Nativity for the Church of S. Agostino at Città di Castello, where his Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, of the year 1496, is to be seen in the Church of S. Domenico. To the latter year also belong the Descent of the Holy Ghost and the Crucifixion, painted for a standard, but now divided in the Church of S. Spirito at Urbino. In 1497 Signorelli began to paint eight frescos from the life of St. Benedict, in the cloister of the Convent of Monte Riveto Maggiore, near Siena, still extant, though much injured. In 1498 he completed an altarpiece for the Bicchi Chapel, in S. Agostino at Siena, the wings of which, decorated with figures of saints, are in the Museum at Berlin. He was at Siena later, in 1506 and 1509, but whether his frescos in the Palazzo Petrucci were painted then, or at an earlier period, is uncertain. They represent the Calumny of Apelles, a Bacchanal, the Chaining and Triumph of Love, Coriolanus, the Flight of Æneas and Penelope. Called to Orvieto to complete the frescos of the Cappella di San Brizio begun by Fra Angelico, Signorelli employed the greater part of the years 1500 and 1501 in painting his celebrated Last Judgment cycle, upon which he was more or less occupied up to the year 1504. To 1502 belongs the great altarpiece of the Virgin and Apostles with the Dead Christ, in the choir of the Cathedral at Cortona. The altarpiece in S. Medordo at Ancevia, near Fabriano, was painted in 1507. In 1513 Signorelli was sent to Rome with a deputation from Cortona to congratulate Leo X. on his elevation to the papacy, and it was at this time that he visited and borrowed money from Michelangelo, as recorded in the great artist's well-known letter to the Capitano di Cortona. This was Signorelli's last visit to Rome. The remainder of his life was spent at Cortona, or in its neighbourhood. In 1514 he painted the Madonna which still adorns the altar of S. Vin-