Some letters of Federigo Zuccaro in the Oliveriana Library further illustrate the turn of thought which influenced religious art in the end of the sixteenth century. He had been employed in 1583 by Francesco Maria II. to decorate a chapel in the church of Loreto; it was dedicated to the Madonna, and the theme prescribed for his frescoes was her life. The altar-picture by Baroccio represented the Annunciation; and the scenes selected for mural paintings were her marriage, visitation, death, assumption, and coronation. Of these the first three belonged to a class of dramatic compositions adapted to the prevailing taste, while the others partook of the Umbrian influence which still lingered around that shrine. The subsidiary ornaments being of course under the direction of Zuccaro, he felt puzzled how to fill up certain spaces offered by the architectural arrangement, and wrote to the Duke. After consulting the chief theological authorities among the hierarchy of Loreto what would best develop the "humble and mystic" sentiment which it was his object to sustain, the artist suggested that figures emblematic of glory and perpetuity should support the Coronation of the Madonna, as expressing the inherent attributes of that subject. In like manner he proposed to accompany her Death with Faith, Hope, and the Fear of God, the best supports of a death-bed; whilst the Assumption was to have Charity on one hand, Perseverance on the other, and above Joy, the fruit of these virtues and the foretaste of glory. As accompaniments for the Annunciation, he submitted that there should be two prophets or sibyls, the instruments through whom the incarnation of the Word was predicted. Giotto or Fra Angelico would have chosen the prophets of the Old Testament; Michael Angelo would have preferred pagan sibyls; Perugino or Raffaele might have invoked them both; Zuccaro, painting at Loreto, thought either equally appropriate appendages to his allegorical creations.[221] Yet Federigo was not altogether blinded to the barbarous tendency of the taste around him. In writing of Milan, he says that the painters there had in his day "wofully diverged from the beautiful simplicity and arrangement of those living early in the century; and that the Proccaccini, especially Giulio Cesare, introduced a set of scoffing heads, and certain angels so debauched looking, and devoid of all reverence in the presence of God and the Madonna, that I know not how they are tolerated, unless it be that they are excused for the sake of many other commendable parts."[222] [Footnote 221: In reference to appropriate lights, Baroccio entirely condemns the use of stained glass, as darkening the interior, and injuring, by coloured rays, the effect of paintings. Zuccaro, however, recommends the introduction of a tinted armorial bearing, surrounded by a wreath of fruits and flowers, as likely to mellow without obscuring the chapel.] [Footnote 222: _Lettere Pittoriche_, vii., p. 513.]