We have seen in the history how the inhabitants of Perugia, driven to desperation by their own wickedness, would take fits of the most passionate religious revolt, and, casting aside the vanities of the flesh, half kill themselves with cords and stripes and lamentations. This excess of repentance took different forms. Sometimes, as we know, it resulted in an appeal to the saints through wild, mad litanies; at others in an appeal to Christ's mercy through art; and it was at such times that the Umbrian school, beginning with Bonfigli and ending in works like Raphael's Sistine Madonna and Baroccio's much later designs, painted the _gonfalone_, a style of picture which is very typical of Umbria, and which should be looked at with a knowledge of the events from which it first originated. These banners were carried about the city, the priests walking in front, the populace behind, a wail and shriek of lamentation falling on the air as the procession passed. Sometimes, as in the banner of Bonfigli at S. Fiorenzo, a poem of supplication to God would be painted, upheld by angels, on the banner itself, with passionate words of prayer upon it. It is difficult to render into English the palpitating style of the original verses, but we quote some passages to illustrate the sentiment which inspired the painting of the _gonfalone_ of S. Fiorenzo (the date of the banner is about 1476): "Oh, most obstinate and wicked people--cruel, proud, and full of all iniquity, who hast placed thy faith and thy desires on things which are full of a mortal misery, I, the angel of Heaven, am sent unto you from God to tell you that he will put an end to all your wounds and weeping, your ruin and your curse, through the mediation of Mary.... Turn, turn your eyes, most miserable mortals, to the great examples of the past and present, to the utter miseries and heavy evils which Heaven sends to you because of all your sins: your homicide and your adultery, your avarice and luxury.... O, miserable beings, the justice of heaven works not in a hurry, but it punishes always, even as men deserve.... Nineveh was a city florid and magnificent, and Babylon was likewise, but now they are as nothing; and Sodom and Gomorrah, behold them now--a morass of sulphur and of fetid waters.... Oh, therefore be grateful, and acknowledge the benefits and graces of Our Saviour, and let your souls burn hotly with the fire of faith and charity, of hope and faithful love.... But, and if you should again grow slothful and unwilling to renounce your errors, I foretell a second judgment upon you, and I reckon that it will prove more terrible, more cruel than the first...." The _gonfalone_ on which this menacing appeal of the angel of God is painted is by Bonfigli, and was made at the time of a terrible pestilence which raged through Perugia at the end of the fifteenth century.