The slight concession which Siena made to the Renaissance was inaugurated by Lorenzo Vecchietta, active from about 1440 to 1480. He was primarily a sculptor and his silver altar-back was deemed worthy, in 1506, to displace the great Majesty of Duccio from the high altar of the Cathedral. Vecchietta chiefly shows the effect of his studies as architect and sculptor in a severe regard for anatomy, and in the Renaissance character of his architectural settings. He painted for the Cathedral of Pienza a majestic Assumption, his masterpiece. There are numerous frescoes by him at Siena; he is perhaps most agreeable in little stories elaborately set amid rich architecture, but he lacks the sprightliness of the true narrative tradition. “He was a melancholy and solitary person,” writes Vasari, “and always sunk in thought.” He did something to give to the Sienese painting of the end of the century a new and complicating thoughtfulness. [Illustration: FIG. 65. Benvenuto of Siena. Assumption of the Virgin.—_Metropolitan Museum, New York._ ] Far the most versatile painter at Siena in the second half of the fifteenth century was Matteo di Giovanni.[26] He was not a native, but born about 1430 at Borgo San Sepolcro in upper Umbria. There he worked for a time with that stern realist Piero della Francesca. Thus Matteo brought to Siena better training than his fellows had, but he soon fell contentedly into the ways of the place. His madonnas and female saints have a new touch. They are more girlish and fragile than their predecessors, more exquisite, more fashionable. The type is represented in dozens of panels of which Enthroned Saint Barbara, at Saint Domencio, dated 1477, Figure 63, is a fine example. [Illustration: FIG. 66. Girolamo di Benvenuto. Love bound by Maidens. Birth Salver.—_Jarves Coll., New Haven, Conn._ ] In such work Matteo continues the tradition of Sassetta along somewhat superficial lines of prettiness. He is far more original in the several versions of the Massacre of the Innocents, in which seeking a maximum of intensity he achieves only a very interesting sort of caricature. The picture at S. Agostino, Figure 64, dated 1482, is perhaps the best of the group. We are in the realm of the grisly fairy tale, at an ogre’s sports. The crowding, tumult, ornate architecture are simply Matteo’s attempts to refurbish the old Lorenzettian tradition. His real quality best appears in the outlines prepared for the figure decoration of the pavement of the Cathedral. In general his is an engaging but entirely undisciplined talent, oscillating after the fashion of the moment, alike in Florence and Siena, between mere prettiness and sheer restlessness. He died in 1495, Michelangelo’s star being already in the ascendent over neighboring Florence.