The "Ascension" altar-piece is the first one that we have to consider of that group of Perugino's altar-pieces which have been divided, the component parts being scattered throughout Europe. To this division and scattering fuller attention is given in the next chapter, and it will suffice here to state that the centre part is at Lyons, the lunette at St. Gervais, Paris, the predella in three panels at Rouen, and the surrounding saints divided, three in the Vatican Gallery and five in the church of S. Pietro, where at one time the complete work rested. The picture at Borgo San Sepolcro is usually spoken of as a replica of the centre piece of this great picture, but I am strongly disposed to take an opposite view of the case. Vasari records the painting of the Borgo picture, which was, he says, "executed for the Abbot Simone de' Graziani and transported to the church of San Gilio at Borgo on the backs of porters at very heavy cost." He also records the painting of the picture for S. Pietro, naming it almost at the close of his biographical notes on the artist; and of this picture he says: "The whole of it is replete with evidences of thought and care, insomuch that it is one of the best paintings in oil executed by Pietro in Perugia." It is quite impossible to accept the chronology Vasari gives, as he mixes up dates in the most hopeless confusion; but in this instance I think he is right in putting the Borgo picture before the Lyons one rather than _vice versâ_. The picture at Borgo is in bad condition: the one at Lyons has been transferred to canvas and very much repainted, and still shows signs of two vertical splits in the panel; but, despite all these injuries, the Borgo picture is, I consider, the finer of the two, and the Lyons one, although by the same hand, a later and more careless replica.