About the time these frescoes were designed, a renovation of Sienese painting was being made along divergent lines by Stefano di Giovanni, nicknamed Sassetta,[25] and by the eager eccentric, Giovanni di Paolo. In both cases we have a reactionary reform. Sassetta restudies devoutly Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti, infusing his own tender mysticism both into decoration and narrative. In a manner he combines the two great currents of Siena’s past. We may best approach him through the triptych of the Birth of the Virgin in the Collegiate church at Asciano, Figure 59. It is his earliest work painted not much later than 1428 when, being thirty-five years old, he joined the Painters’ Guild. The picture is conceived in the strictest Lorenzettian fashion, the frame being treated as the front or extension of the painted architecture. Aside from this carefully constructed setting, with its successive spaces, the casual and familiar distribution of the figures suggests strongly Pietro Lorenzetti. But the rich accessories in Sassetta’s hands are delicately selected, the humble gestures have an artless grace, the secondary figures such as the brocaded handmaid entering from the rear are fascinating in their own right. An air of alert gentleness runs through the picture. It is shared by persons of all ages. Such episodes as the chatting of two old men before a respectfully listening urchin add nothing to the story but strongly reinforce the faery charm of the whole. Winsomeness has supplanted the monumental quality of the older school. Above in the side gables are the scenes of the passing of the Virgin’s soul and her funeral procession, both conceived in the manner of the Lorenzetti. But the familiar forms are singularly animated by a new spirit of tenderness. By a paradox these little stories are really more like Duccio than any intervening work. [Illustration: FIG. 59. Sassetta. The Birth of the Virgin.—_Asciano._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 60. Sassetta. Marriage of St. Francis to Poverty.—_Chantilly, France._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 61. Sassetta. Temptation of St. Anthony.—_Jarves Coll., New Haven, Conn._ ]