value of the landscape better kept, more softly modulated than in any we have yet noticed. [Illustration: _Anderson photo_] [_Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome_ THE DEMON WOMEN (Detail from the fresco of "St. Anthony and St. Paul")] The light over the windows is so bad that it is almost impossible to get an adequate view of the frescoes placed there. This is particularly unfortunate in the Hall of Saints, for no one of the scenes is more beautiful, more happily grouped or more full of interest than the one of St. Sebastian's martyrdom. The young Saint who, transfixed with arrows and bound with cords, stands at the base of a column placed against a mass of ruined brickwork on Mount Palatine, is a pathetic figure, full of calm dignity and resignation. It is drawn and modelled with care and freedom, and has a force and solidity which make us regret that Pintoricchio did not give himself more chance by oftener painting studies from the nude. The figure and drapery with some modifications seem to have been adapted from his fresco of the "Baptism of Christ," but he has learnt more since then, and it stands firmer and gives a greater sense of elasticity and poise. The groups of archers on either hand, shooting at their human mark, under the superintendence of a Janissary in Eastern dress,[25] are full of movement and variety. One draws his bow, another is putting the arrow in the string, another has just let fly, while behind him a fourth in half armour shades his eyes with his hand and watches the weapon speed to the mark--a quaint, matter-of-fact rendering of a scene of tragedy, which deprives it of its serious character and gives it, as Steinmann remarks, a social air, as of a friendly shooting match. [25] In the British Museum is a drawing for this figure, attributed to Gentile Bellini, about which I shall have more to say. The scene in which the event takes place is more interestingly painted in some ways than any of the other landscapes. It is easy to see that studies for it have been made upon the Palatine itself, where tradition has always held that Sebastian, who was a captain of the Roman Guard, met his martyrdom. The small old Roman brickwork, overgrown with exquisitely drawn acanthus and ivy, is rendered with detailed care, and broken columns stand or lie around. In the background we see the half-ruined Colosseum, as Sixtus IV. left it when he built the Sixtine Bridge from its blocks. On the right is a church--it may be San Giovanni e Paolo, or the one raised in honour of the saint himself. Nowhere up to this time has the beauty and the melancholy of the Roman landscape been rendered by any artist, and once more we feel how deeply beauty in all its forms appealed to the Umbrian painter. [Illustration: _Anderson photo_] [_Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome_ THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. SEBASTIAN]