[*127] Dennistoun says nothing of the magnificent work of Simone Martini, the Sienese, in S. Francesco, at Assisi.
[*128] Cf. Venturi, Storia dell'Arte Italiana (Milano, 1907), vol. V., 837, 1003-4, 1014, 1022.
[129] Carey's Dante, Purg. XI., 76.
[130] The Ordo Officiorum Senensis Ecclesiæ, a MS. of 1215, in the library of Siena, has been ascribed to him, by confusion with another Oderico, a canon there; it possesses no artistic merit whatever.
[*131] He refers to S. Antonio Abate, I suppose. There is nothing by Palmerucci in S. Maria Nuova, but a Madonna and Saints and Gonfaloniere kneeling are attributed to him in the Prefettura.
[*132] Cf. Mazzatinti, Documenti per la storia delle Arti a Gubbio, in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 1-48. Ottaviano was living certainly after 1444.
[133] Carteggio d'Artisti, I., p. 131. Countess Caterina, to whom it is addressed, was wife of Count Guidantonio, mentioned in [vol. I., p. 42]. For some notices of Ottaviano, I am indebted to a short account of him by Signor Luigi Bonfatti of Gubbio, whose zealous researches will, it is to be hoped, soon enable him to illustrate as it deserves the hitherto neglected art of Umbria. His theory that Gentile was a pupil of Ottaviano may be redargued by their ages being nearly equal, but an examination of the surviving frescoes at Gubbio has inclined me to believe that the former drew from the same school of Oderigi, as represented by the Nelli, some of those inspirations of holy pathos, and something of that playful brilliancy of tints, which he subsequently combined with new principles.
[134] Palliotto was the painting or wood-carving occasionally placed on the altar-front in early times, for which a hanging of brocade or muslin was afterwards substituted.
[*135] Some magnificent works by Allegretto Nuzi of a most surprising loveliness may be seen in Fabriano.
[136] Such testimony, from artists so antipathic to his practice, is a curious tribute at once to his merit and influence.