But in a smaller work of his son OTTAVIANO, the church of S. Maria Nuova possesses the very finest existing specimen of the Umbrian school, exempt from injury or restoration. The lovely and saint-like Madonna, the seraphic choir that forms a glory around her, the Almighty crowning the "highly favoured among women," have perhaps never been equalled among the happiest embodyings of devotional genius; nor are the rich colouring, the accessory saints, and the portraits of the Peroli family, who, in 1403, commissioned this grand work, inferior in merit. He is supposed to have been born about 1375, and, after executing in Assisi, Urbino, and other circumjacent towns, works long perished, to have died in 1444. Of the mural paintings by his brother Tomaso, in S. Domenico and under the Piazzone of his native town, it is impossible to say more than that whatever of the family inspiration may have guided his pencil has been nearly obscured by cruel restorations. [Footnote *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.] [Illustration: _Alinari_ MADONNA DEL BELVEDERE _After the fresco by Ottaviano Nelli in S. Maria Nuova, Gubbio_] Among the pupils of Ottaviano, "Who on high niche or cloister wall, Inscribed their bright-lined lays," about Gubbio, are PITALI, DOMENICO DI CECCHI, and BERNARDINO DI NANNI: to these may be added GIACOMO BEDI, a name that has escaped the historians of Italian art, by whom were painted in the church of S. Agostino four scenes in the life of the saint, which retain a freshness and force of colour equal to any productions of the age. With these the influence of Oderigi seems to have become extinct in his native town, before the close of the fifteenth century, long ere which it had, however, been transported elsewhere by Gentile da Fabriano, who, emerging from his Apennine home, reproduced in Florence and in Rome the characteristics of that master, amid universal applause, and, carrying them to Venice, founded there the religious feeling which the Bellini, Vivarini, and Cima di Conegliano sustained, imparting at the same time that taste for luxuriant colouring which Titian brought to perfection. But, ere we turn to the school of Fabriano, we may here translate from the original quaint Italian a letter from Ottaviano, illustrative of the early patronage of art by the Montefeltrian family. No trace of the works there mentioned now remains.[133]