surface of which our Lady is represented, with two other half-length figures, and underneath the remains of an inscription are legible, which having copied on the spot, I do not hesitate to publish with its deficiencies now supplied: _Iv_nTA PISAnUS _Ivn_TINI ME _Fecit_. I supply _Juntini_, because Signor da Morrona asserts,[39] that about this time, a _Giunta da Giuntino_ is mentioned in the records of Pisa, whom by the aid of the _Assisi_ inscription, I conjecture to be the painter we have now under notice. The figures are considerably less than life; the design is dry, the fingers excessively long, but these are _vitia non hominum sed temporum_; in short, this piece shews a knowledge of the naked figure, an expression of pain in the heads, and a disposition of the drapery, greatly superior to the efforts of the Greeks, his contemporaries. The handling of his colours is strong, although the flesh inclines to that of bronze; the local tints are judiciously varied, the chiaroscuro even shews some art, and the whole is not inferior, except in the proportions, to crucifixions with similar half figures usually ascribed to Cimabue. He painted at Assisi another crucifixion, which is now lost, to which may be added, a portrait of Frat' Elia, with this inscription, "_F. Helias fecit fieri. Jesu Christe pie miserere precantis Heliæ. Juncta Pisanus me pinxit, An. D. 1236. Indit. IX._" The inscription has been preserved by P. Wadingo in his annals of the Franciscan order for that year, and the historian describes the crucifixion as _affabre pictum_. The fresco works of Giunta were executed in the great church of the Franciscans, and according to Vasari he was there assisted by certain Greeks. Some busts and history pieces still remain in the gallery and the contiguous chapels, among which is the crucifixion of San Pietro, noticed in the _Etruria Pittrice_. Some believe that those paintings have been here and there injudiciously retouched, and this may serve to excuse the drawing, which may have been altered in many places, but the feebleness of the colouring cannot be denied. When they are compared with what Cimabue executed there about forty years afterwards, it seems that Giunta was not sufficiently forcible in this species of painting; perhaps he might have improved, but he is not mentioned after 1235; and it is conjectured that he died while yet a young man, at a distance from his native country. I am induced to believe so from observing, that Giunta di Giuntino is noticed in the records of Pisa, in the early part of that century, but not afterwards; and that Cimabue was sent for to paint the altar-piece and portrait of San Francesco of Pisa, about the year 1265, before he went to Assisi. It is more likely that Giunta would have executed this, had he returned home from that city, where he had seen and perhaps painted the portrait of the Holy Father.[40]