On the other hand there is a decided advance in the frescoes of Niccolo Pizzolo, the only one of the Squarcionesques who approached Mantegna’s style, and whose improved colouring and greater nobleness of type are best explained by the discovery that he had worked with the Florentines, Donatello and Filippo Lippi, during their residence in Padua. To him Vasari ascribes the figure of the Eternal between St. Peter and St. Paul on the dome of the tribune, and later critics have recognised his hand in the “Call of St. James and St. John” and “St. James exorcising Devils” on the upper part of the left wall. But the finest of all his works here is “The Assumption,” in the apse, a fresco which in joyous life and freedom of movement so far surpasses the ordinary manner of the Paduans that one of the best critics, Dr. Woltmann, pronounces it to be by Mantegna’s hand. Against this we have the testimony of the anonymous traveller of the sixteenth century, who says decidedly that Andrea painted the lower part of the right and the whole of the left wall, but that “The Assumption” and cupola are by Pizzolo. Vasari is silent on this point, but remarks that Pizzolo’s works in this chapel yielded nothing in excellence to those of Andrea, and probably the best solution of the question is to accept both “The Assumption” and the upper frescoes of St. James’s life as the joint composition of the two artists, or at least to allow that they were partly designed by Mantegna. In the midst of Pizzolo’s labours in the Eremitani Chapel his promising career was cut short by a violent end. He had, it appears, an unlucky habit of taking part in street brawls and riots, and one evening as he was returning home from his work he was attacked and slain by some unknown persons whose enmity he had excited. Mantegna was now left alone to complete the unfinished work, and whatever uncertainty rests on his share in the earlier frescoes there is no doubt that the six remaining subjects are entirely by his hand. In each of these we see some clearer revelation of unfolding powers. Step by step some fresh difficulty is overcome, some new knowledge gained, until by slow degrees the battle is won, and the mastery over human form is complete.