In the Capitol is a fresco painting which Mr. Berenson ascribes to our master. Vasari speaks of his having painted such an altar-piece, but this, if the same, was entirely repainted in 1834. The colour of the angels' robes was changed--one from red to yellow, the other from yellow to white. The Virgin's robe, now blue, was originally green. The face is painted out of all recognition. The shape is not oval, the mouth is full with parted lips, and the hair falls on either side of the face. The angels, with knees bending outward, are not Pintoricchio's type--only the Child recalls his Infant in the "Nativity" of Santa Maria del Popolo and the hands are like his in outline. In the tribune of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme is a great composition of the "Finding of the True Cross," which tradition has assigned to him among others and which has strong traces of Umbrian workmanship. This is entirely and heavily repainted, and its artistic value is _nil_, except for the design. We should welcome even such an obscured reminiscence as this, if it remained to us, of the paintings in Castel Sant' Angelo. On a blue, starred vault, the Saviour is surrounded by a _mandorla_ of cherubs. Below, St. Helena stands, holding the cross, with the donor, Cardinal Carvajal, kneeling at her feet. On either side are the miracles attending its recovery. On the left, the Emperor Heraclius rides in triumph, bearing the cross, rescued from infidels, to the city gates. The groups of women on the extreme left, and some of those standing behind the Empress-saint, are full of likeness to Pintoricchio's figures in the "Journey of Moses," and the landscape (the only part which has not been quite repainted), with its purple tints, overhanging rocks, and parties of wayfarers, recalls the work of Fiorenzo. The whole has something of the direct simplicity of Pintoricchio's narratives, but other figures remind us of Signorelli--the forms are heavy and lumpy, and it is probably only by a follower, though one who closely imitated the Umbrian master. CHAPTER V THE BORGIA APARTMENTS There is perhaps hardly a place in Rome where you feel so transported into the heart of that old life of the Renaissance, as you do in the Borgia Apartments. After mid-day it is almost empty of sightseers; and in the long rooms, where the silence is only broken by the splash of the fountain in the quiet, grassy court outside, you realise the setting of the passionate lives that once ran their course here. Here the light caught Lucrezia's golden hair, here the famous pontiff rustled in his brocaded robes, and Cæsar Borgia strode in gilded armour. Here great ambitions were matured, and blackest crimes consummated; and here, too, came and went the little, deaf, beauty-loving painter from the Umbrian hills, and drew his cartoons, and spaced his decorations, and overlooked his army of workmen, and left us as splendid a scheme of rich ornament as the quattro-cento has to show.