The two figures are quite nude. This is almost a unique circumstance with Perugino, the only other nude figures in his pictures being some distant ones in his "Love and Chastity." Here is, therefore, a most exceptional circumstance; and also the absence of any drapery deprives the critic of one of the most definite marks, the dark hollows, by which Perugino's work is identified. Furthermore, there are birds in the sky, and I know of no sky of Perugino's in which they appear. The feet of the two figures are very Peruginesque, the open and upward curling great toe is clearly defined; but the hands have not the awkward tong shape of his earlier work, nor the very thin, boneless appearance of his mature work. The landscape and the trees are like those of Perugino; but the very prominent lyre has none of his characteristics, and in technique and handling is painted quite differently from Perugino's method. The picture seems much more likely to be the work of Pinturicchio, and, in any case, I cannot personally attribute it to Perugino. [Illustration: _Hanfstaengl photo_] [_Munich Gallery_ THE VIRGIN APPEARING TO ST. BERNARD] I agree, however, with Mr. Claud Phillips in attributing the "St. Bernard" at Munich to this period of Perugino's life. It is, of course, impossible to fix its date exactly, but from 1496 to 1500 one may safely put it, and, as regards its serene beauty, hardly too much can be said. The picture was originally in the church of San Spirito in Florence, and there is now a copy of it in that place. King Ludwig I. bought it in 1829 from the Capponi family, who held the rights over the Nasi chapel, where it hung, and although it has been cleaned and restored, it remains a beautiful and quite genuine work. It is well to compare the hands and the ears in this picture, with their delicate, sensitive beauty, with the heavy features in the Caen picture, to which reference was lately made, and the comparison will be wholly satisfactory, and in every way in favour of Mr. Berenson's argument. An interesting study for this "Vision of St. Bernard" is at the Uffizi, and comparison may well be made with a picture by Lippo Lippi in the Badia, illustrating the same scene. To this same period we attribute the "Virgin in Glory" at Bologna, the "Family of St. Anne" at Marseilles, and the masterpiece in Florence, the "Crucifixion" of Sta. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi. In the Bologna picture we see the lovely figure of St. Michael, to which allusion has already been made when reference was made to the Certosa altar-piece, now in the National Gallery. The great archangel is even fuller of beauty in this picture, his hands especially being of exquisite form and grace. There are three other adoring saints, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. John the Divine, and St. Apollonia.