The outside of San Rufino is so lovely that we should be inclined to advise none to enter, and thus spoil the impression it makes, were it not for the triptych by Niccolò da Foligno, "the first painter in whom the emotional, now passionate and violent, now mystic and estatic, temperament of St. Francis' countrymen was revealed."[103] Here we find a dreamy Madonna with flaxen hair, surrounded by tiny angels even fairer than herself in crimson and golden garments folded about their hips. The lunettes above are studded with patches of jewel-colour, angels spreading their pointed wings upwards as they seem to be wafted to and fro by a breeze. Four tall and serious saints stand round the Virgin like columns; to the right St. Peter Damian busily writing in a book, and St. Marcello, an Assisan martyr of the fourth century who might pass for a typical Italian priest of the present day. On the left is St. Rufino in the act of giving his pastoral blessing, and St. Esuberanzio, another of Assisi's early martyrs, holding a missal. They stand in a meadow thickly overgrown with flowers drawn with all Niccolò's firm outline and love of detail. Fine as the picture is, it cannot compare with the charming predella where the artist has worked with the delicacy of a miniature painter. It represents the martyrdom of St. Rufino; in the first small compartment the Roman soldiers on horseback, their lances held high in the air, followed by a group of prying boys, watch the Bishop's tortures as the flames shoot up around him; and in the distance are two small hill-towns with the towers of Costano in the plain. Then follows the scene where two young Assisan Christians have come down to the Chiaggio to rescue the body of their saint from the river. He lies stiffly in their arms, attired in his episcopal vestments, and the water has sucked the long folds of his cope below its surface. The last represents the procession of citizens led by Bishop Basileo bringing St. Rufino's body from Costano, and is one of the most exquisite bits of Umbrian painting. Niccolò has placed the scene in early morning, the air is keen among the mountains, the sun has just reached Assisi, seen against the white slopes of Subasio, and turns its houses to a rosy hue, while the tiny wood in the plain is still in deepest shadow. The white-robed acolytes mount the hill in the sunlight followed by the people and the heifers which ought, Niccolò has forgotten, according to the legend, to have led the way. The picture is signed Opus Nicholai De Fuligneo MCCCCLX.