of a man who is a consummate draughtsman, and whose drawing here, at any rate, is a thing of life.  On the back of these panels Piero has painted an allegory, or a trionfo, whose meaning no one has yet read.  The Uffizi has lately been enriched by a work of his pupil, that rare painter, Melozzo da Forli.  Two panels of the Annunciation, very beautiful in Colour and full of something that seems strange, coming from that Umbrian country, so mystical and simple, hang now with the portraits of Piero.  Nor is the work of Melozzo da Forli’s pupil, Marco Palmezzano, whose facile work litters the Gallery of Forli, wanting, for here is a Crucifixion (1095) from his hand, certainly one of his more important pictures.

Pietro Vanucci, called Il Perugino, was born about 1446 at Castel della Pieve, some twenty-six miles from Perugia.  The greatest master of the Umbrian School, for we are content to call Raphael a Roman painter, his work, so sweet and lovely at its best, is at its worst little better than a repetition of his own mannerisms.  Here, in the Uffizi, however, we have four of his best works—­the three great portraits, Francesco delle Opere (287), Alessandro Braccesi (1217), and the Portrait of a Lady (1120), long given to Raphael, but which Mr. Berenson assures us is Perugino’s; and the Madonna and Child of the Tribuna, painted in 1493.  The Francesco delle Opere was perhaps his first portrait, full of virility beyond anything else in his work, save his own portrait at Perugia.  For many years this picture, owing, it might seem, to a mistake of the Chevalier Montalvo, was supposed to represent Perugino himself, so that the picture was hung in the Gallery of the Portraits of Painters.  At last an inscription was discovered on the back of the picture, which reads as follows:  1494, D’Luglio Pietro Perugino Pinse Franco Delopa.

Francesco delle Opere was a Florentine painter, the brother of Giovanni delle Corniole.  He died at Venice, and it may well be that it was at Venice that Perugino first met him.  Perugino’s picture shows us Francesco, a clean-shaven and young person, holding a scroll on which is written, “Trineta Deum;” the portrait is a half-length, and the hands are visible.  In the background is a characteristic country of hill and valley under the deep serene sky, the light and clear golden air that we see in so much of his work.  The Portrait of a Lady (1120), long given to Raphael, comes to the Uffizi from the Grand Ducal Villa of Poggio a Caiano; it was supposed to be the portrait of Maddalena Strozzi, wife of Angela Doni.  The portrait shows us a young woman, in a Florentine dress of the period, while around her neck is a gold chain, from which hangs a little cross.  The Portrait of a Young Man (1217) is painted on wood, and is life size.