In the little room which leads out of Room X. we make an interesting study of Perugino's pictures, for it contains some of his earliest and also some of his most decadent work. Had the municipality of Perugia just a touch of humour or malice when they hung No. 25 side by side with No. 16? Whatever they had in their heads they have given to us a curious study. Here are two works by the same man, the latter probably a pot-boiler of his school but still burdened with his name. Both represent precisely the same subject, the same set of saints is in each of them; but the early work is full of thought, of reverence and feeling; the early Sebastian, calm and grave, has the arrow in his very flesh, and the later Sebastian, simpering and affected, toys with his arrow and turns with painful affectation to the Saviour. There is a lovely little set of sketches on the predella under No. 6; the Nativity, a mere hurried impression, seems full of the breeze of early spring in Umbria. * * * * * We have a splendid bit of Pinturicchio's work in this room which bears his name, and also one of the rare paintings of Lo Spagna; one or two pictures which bear at least the name of Raphael, and the much disputed "Adoration" which has been ascribed to more than one distinguished person. * * * * * Bernardino di Betto, usually known as Pinturicchio and sometimes as il Sordicchio because he was deaf, and small and of a mean appearance, studied in the school of Perugia, and indeed was one of its most distinguished painters; but having left that earliest studio he carried his talents to other parts, and painted as we know for popes and princes, painted above all things those two wonderful series of frescoes in the Duomo at Siena and in the Borgia rooms at the Vatican. He has been called sometimes the Umbrian Gozzoli; certainly he was the historical painter of the great school which grew in the times of Perugino. Vasari with a certain prejudice and ill nature insists that Pinturicchio's success was one rather of opportunity than of talent; but it is much more probable that the painter was beloved because he was faithful to his promises and carried out his orders with care and with precision. We know, too, that after all the sums he got, and all his heavy labours, he died of hunger and neglect on a winter's night at Siena, his wife having deserted him and eloped with a new lover. Pinturicchio had a grant of land given to him in the neighbourhood of Perugia in 1495, by Alexander VI., and he determined to return to his native city and live there; but some years later, when in money difficulties, he was forced to sell it to a gentleman of Perugia.