In the Borgo picture the Virgin is in religious garb and has the head covered: in the Lyons picture there is a more secular garb, the head uncovered and short hair to be seen. In the Borgo picture the angels carry loosely looped narrow ribbon carefully and gracefully drawn: the ribbon in the Lyons picture is broader, more coarsely painted, lettered throughout, and falling in awkward folds. The wings of the cherubs in the mandorla at Borgo are painted with exquisite detail, every little scale and feather being carefully represented; these details are almost entirely absent in the Lyons picture, where the wings of the cherubs appear to be hurriedly painted and lacking altogether in finish. There is far greater sweetness in the faces at Borgo, especially those of the Redeemer, the Virgin, St. Peter, and St. Paul, than at Lyons, where all these four important faces are roughly and even coarsely delineated. In some of the attendant disciples, the hair, which at Borgo is daintily painted in, and flows in slightly ringletted form, hangs loosely at Lyons and is of a harsher texture, and the wonderful trees sharply delineated against the sky and full of exquisite foliage at Borgo, are hardly to be seen at Lyons, and are represented by half-a-dozen dwarfish shrubs. The mandorla in the Borgo picture is a deep luminous band of mysterious colour, out of which, and against the light fleecy clouds, rise the cherub faces: at Lyons it is a flat band of heavy colour, the clouds are woolly and thick, and the cherub faces, instead of rising from the wondrous depth, lay superimposed upon the mandorla as upon a piece of board. [Illustration: _Alinari photo_] [_Borgo San Sepolcro_ THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST]