The gems of Stanza IX. are two pictures hung under the name of Pinturicchio—a Nativity (28), which Mr Berenson attributes to Matteo Balducci, and a Madonna and Child holding a pomegranate, with the little St John, against a gold background (29), recognised by the same authority as an early work of Baldassare Peruzzi. We have several Madonnas by Fungai (1, 21, 23, 24, 33); five Saints by Pacchiarotti (5); a whole series of Umbrian pictures—Saints (2, 37), Virtues (10, 11, 15, 19), and a Madonna (17)—attributed to Balducci by Mr Berenson. By Balducci is also the Madonna and Child with St Jerome and St Francis (14). There are dated pictures by Guidoccio Cozzarelli (7) of 1482, and by Andrea di Niccolò (8), an unimportant painter of the end of the Quattrocento. The Trinità, with the two St Johns, St Cosmas and St Damian, is one of Beccafumi’s earliest and best works; it was painted in 1512 for the Spedale, as the presence of the two patrons of the healing art—a kind of mediaeval duplication of Aesculapius—indicates.
The long hall, Stanza X., contains larger pictures of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The arrangement being rather confused, it will, perhaps, be best to take them more or less chronologically. By Matteo di Giovanni are three smaller Madonnas near the entrance—one (12) being rather doubtful—and an important altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with Angels and Saints (36). Guidoccio Cozzarelli is represented by a St Catherine exchanging hearts with the Christ (4), Vecchietta by the interesting sketch (5) for his bronze tabernacle that is now on the high altar of the Duomo, Francesco di Giorgio by a signed Nativity of our Lord (41) and the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin (44)—two large pictures curiously lacking the usual Sienese grace and refinement, showing to some extent the influence of Signorelli. A worthless picture of the Passion (29), which should not even questionably be connected with this painter’s name, shows the Sienese school at its weakest and worst. Benvenuto di Giovanni is seen to considerable advantage in a triptych (39), signed and dated 1475; the central compartment, the Madonna and Child with Angels, is particularly attractive. His Ascension of Christ (37), on the other hand, from the church of Sant’ Eugenio, signed and dated 1491, is rather harsh and uninspired. By Fungai are a Madonna with Saints (30), signed and dated 1512, and an Assumption (45), a subject in which the painter succeeded better elsewhere. It is not easy to distinguish the early style of Pacchiarotti from that of Fungai; the altarpiece (14) is said to be by the master and pupil in collaboration; the Ascension (24), with its predella (23), dry and hard with uncouth and unrefined types, and the Visitation (31), in which the white-robed girlish Madonna has much sweetness and charm, are by Pacchiarotti. Girolamo di Benvenuto is represented by the best picture he ever painted (which, after all, is rather faint praise), signed and dated 1508, representing the Madonna and Child attended by Angels and Saints (17), with the two St Catherines kneeling before the throne—the Alexandrian of the Wheels being obviously an excellent portrait of a young Sienese lady of the Cinquecento.
The famous Deposition from the Cross (13) is an early work by Bazzi, practically the first important picture that he painted on his first coming to Siena; it is entirely in the Lombard or Milanese style, recalling the work of Luini. The scenes in the predella are by another hand. The Prayer in the Garden (2) and the Descent into Limbo (46), the remains of a series of frescoes which he painted for the Compagnia di Santa Croce, are later and have suffered from restoration; in the latter the figure of Eve is exceedingly lovely, one of those exquisite presentments of women in which this painter excels. Girolamo del Pacchia is represented by an Annunciation and Visitation (7), painted in 1518, a beautiful work, showing the influence
of Albertinelli. An attractive tondo ascribed to him, the Holy Family with St Antony of Padua (35), was given back by Morelli to its proper author, Girolamo Genga. A very Perugian Nativity (26), hung as Pinturicchio, is ascribed by Mr Berenson to Balducci, by whom is also the predella (25), belonging to a picture that we shall see in Santo Spirito—an excellent little work representing the Pietà between the reception of the Stigmata by St Francis and St Catherine respectively. By Andrea del Brescianino is an uninteresting altarpiece (9), with a predella (8); while of Bartolommeo Neroni’s pictures the best is the Coronation of the Madonna (47), with its predella (49), from the church of San Francesco in Asciano.