Fra Giovanni Angelico was commissioned, in 1447, to

113 8



THE CATHEDRALS OF CENTRAL ITALY

adorn its walls with frescoes illustrating the Last Judg-
ment, which, assisted by Benozzo Gozzoli, he commenced
without delay ; but on the completion of two pictures on
the quadripartitely vaulted roofs, the Saviour amidst ador-
ing Angels, and the Company of the Prophets, he quitted
Orvieto, never to return. We may feel the greater admira-
tion for the fruits of his genius here before us when we
remember that they were produced within the short inter-
val, from the 15th of June to the 18th of September 1447,
after which date the artist returned to Rome, in order to
complete the paintings commenced in the Vatican. An en-
gagement with Perugino for the Orvieto series was never
carried out by that artist, and it was not until half a cen-
tury afterwards that Luca Signorelli finished, after less
than a year's labour, the exquisite groups of the Beati-
fied, Martyrs and Apostles, that pertain to the same great
argument commenced by Angelico ; and at the beginning
of the year 1 500, the former artist offered to undertake
the paintings on the walls of the same chapel — subjects,
the Story of Antichrist and the Resurrection — which
were first exhibited, probably in completeness, on the Festi-
val of the Assumption, 1502. In Angelico's part of this
series, the Saviour in Judgment is a sublime figure, and
though in an attitude that seems to menace the wicked,
not without a benignant beauty suited to this divine sub-
ject — different indeed from the stern and repulsive aspect
of the Judge in Michael Angelo's picture, though the atti-
tude of this chief figure is almost copied by the later artists
from Fra Giovanni.
