UMBRIA 



The frescoes in the Borgia Apartment^ in the Vatican 

 are full of living creatures. Susanna preparing for 

 the bath in her little enclosed garden is surrounded by 

 her pets — a stag and hind, rabbits, a hare, and a monkey 

 chained by the middle. The usual hawks fly across 

 the sky. They occur again in the St. Catherine before the 

 Emperor, where hoopoes are also flying about. The same 

 birds, with a bee-eater, are painted in the Martyrdom of 

 St. Sebastian ; sl wild-duck is nearly as important as the 

 Dove in the Descent of the Holy Ghost. In the Visit of 

 St. Anthony to St. Paul the Hermit, a raven flies across 

 the rocks over the heads of two female devils. 



Observation and humour is shown by the painter of 

 the Stoiy of Griselda, a follower of Pinturicchio (National 

 Gallery). All the animals are characteristic and painted 

 with appreciative enjoyment. Three couples especially 

 are introduced in an anecdotal spirit. A deer wishes 

 to investigate a fallen rose, the peacock's curiosity is 

 also aroused, and the sidelong distrust of the two shy 

 creatures is well caught. A staid and old-gentlemanly 

 dog is being barked at by a silly and vulgar cur with 

 a most abandoned cock to his ear, but is too dignified 



* Mr. Edward Hutton, speaking of these rooms, says : " You come upon 

 a whole delightful country, a kind of Garden of Eden, where the animals are 

 friends with man — man and woman being always so dainty, so charming 

 there ; so that they play among the tall flowers unafraid, and the birds sing 

 under the soft sky, or build in the strange, fantastic trees." — The Cities of 

 Uinbria, 1906, p. 222. 



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