Under the shadow of San Francesco rises the little oratory of his great Sienese follower, San Bernardino. On the ground floor is a Madonna and Child with St Ansanus and St Bartholomew, a beautiful early work of Andrea del Brescianino. On the upper floor, in an antechapel, are a Madonna by Sano di Pietro and a marble bas-relief, the Madonna with Angels, signed by Agostino di Giovanni. The oratory itself is the "Siena's Art-laboratory" of Robert Browning's _Pacchiarotto_ poem. Its walls are covered by a series of frescoes by Bazzi, Girolamo del Pacchia and Beccafumi, painted between 1518 and 1532, among the finest achievements of these three masters, under a richly decorated roof of the end of the Quattrocento by Giuliano Turapilli. On the left wall are: St Louis of Anjou by Bazzi; the Nativity of the Madonna, by Pacchia, showing Florentine influence; the Presentation in the Temple, by Bazzi; the Sposalizio by Beccafumi; San Bernardino by Pacchia. On the altar wall, between the Archangel and the Virgin of the Annunciation by Pacchia, is a grandiose fresco by Beccafumi (painted in 1537, nearly twenty years later than his other works here), representing the Madonna and Child enthroned with Apostles, Franciscans, and Angels. On the right wall are: St Antony of Padua, now ascribed to Pacchia; the Visitation by Bazzi; the Death of the Blessed Virgin, with Angels and Apostles clustering round, Christ rushing down from Heaven to receive her soul, by Beccafumi; the Assumption and St Francis by Bazzi. Between the windows is the Coronation of Mary in Heaven by the Blessed Trinity, with the Baptist and Adam as assessors, also by Bazzi. The little church of San Pietro Ovile contains two good early Sienese paintings. On the right is the Annunciation with, above, the Crucifixion between St Peter and St Paul; the central scene is a copy, with variations and some change of sentiment, from the well-known picture by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi in the Uffizi. Opposite to it is a Madonna and Child by Pietro Lorenzetti, between San Bernardino and the Baptist by Matteo di Giovanni. * * * * * "Before you, magnificent and potent Lords, Lords Priors, Governors of the Commune, and Captain of the People of Siena,"--thus begins a petition of February 25th, 1465 (_i.e._ 1466)--"the least of your children and servants, the Officers over the Adornment of your City, with due reverence set forth that they are continually thinking how to do what may be to the adorning of the city, especially on the Strada Romana where pass the strangers who give praise to all the city."[154] This [Illustration: PIAZZA AND PALAZZO TOLOMEI]