not that of a man of action, and all the character of the face gives the lie to the suggestions of the storytellers. It is clear, however, that the painter made a long stay in Monza and when he came back to Milan he worked for the churches of St. Maurizio, Santa Maria della Pace, Santa Maria di Brera, and St. Ambrosia.

In Milan he found a great patron, no less a man than Giovanni Bentivoglio who had been driven from his rule over Bologna by the “Terrible Pontiff” Julius II., that life-long opponent and bitter enemy of the Borgia Pope Alexander VI. Alessandro Bentivoglio, the son of the ruined Giovanni, married Ippolita Sforza, daughter of one of the house that had done so much to rule Rome until Pope Alexander VI. broke its power. Alessandro Bentivoglio commissioned Luini to paint altar-pieces in St. Maurizio where his father was buried, and the painter included in his work a portrait of Ippolita Sforza with three female saints. He did much other work in this church; some of it has faded almost beyond recognition.

At the same time there is no need to think that we have recovered the last work of Luini or indeed of the great masters even in the churches of Italy. Only a few months ago the writer was in a small Italian church that had suffered a few years ago from disastrous floods. The water unable to find no outlet had risen for a time almost to the top of the supporting columns. The smooth wall above was plastered, and when the waters had subsided it was found that the plaster had become so damaged that it was necessary to remove it. Happily the work was done carefully, for under the whitewash some excellent frescoes were discovered. They would seem to have profited by their covering for as much as has been uncovered is rich and well preserved. It may be that in days when the State of Italy was seriously disturbed, and Napoleon, greatest of highwaymen and conquerors, after being crowned in Milan with the famous Monza crown, was laying his hand on all that seemed worth carrying away, some one in authority thought of this simple method of concealment, and obtained expert advice that enabled the frescoes to be covered without serious damage. Under similar conditions we may yet discover some of the earlier work of Luini, because it is clear that the years in which his reputation was in the making must have been full of achievement of which the greater part has now been lost. He could hardly have been less than thirty years of age when he came to Milan with a reputation sufficient to gain commissions for work in churches; that reputation must have taken years to acquire, and must have been associated with very definite accomplishment. The lack of all record was essentially the misfortune that beset men who were not very high in the esteem of their contemporaries. A painter like Luini would have executed a great many pictures for people who could not pay very well, and had no great gallery or well-built church to harbour the work, and in the course of time the work would tend inevitably to disappear before the devouring candle-smoke, or to be carried away by unscrupulous purchasers who chanced to be better equipped with taste than conscience. On the other hand, painters who led the various movements of their time would be honoured by successive generations and their work would be stored in the best and safest places. To be sure, fire was never a respecter of palaces or persons, and the flames have consumed more work than a collection of the finest Renaissance pictures in existence could show, but even then the odds seem to be in favour of the bigger men because special efforts would be made to save their paintings while those of lesser men would be left with few regrets to take their chance.

When Luini was engaged to work in the Church of St. Maurizio there was a fair chance that his altar-pieces and frescoes would be well looked after, but when he worked for a small provincial family like the Pelucca the house sank with the family fortunes till at last it became a farm, and in the early years of the nineteenth century the frescoes were taken from the walls with as much care as was deemed advisable. Doubtless Luini worked for many men whose worldly position was not as considerable as that of the Pelucca family, and that work may have disappeared altogether. The painter, as we have seen, did not enjoy the patronage of many great men before Alessandro Bentivoglio, and large institutions were not numbered among his early clients. But he was not altogether without valuable patronage in the latter days, and in the early ’twenties of the sixteenth century the influential Brotherhood of the Holy Crown, one of the leading charitable institutions of Milan, would seem to have given him some official connection with their institution; a recognised position without fixed salary. For them he painted the magnificent frescoes now in the Ambrosian Library. The great work there was divided by the artist into three parts separated by pillars. In the centre Luini has depicted the crowning with thorns, Christ being seated upon a throne while thorns are being put upon His head; His arms are crossed; His expression one of supreme resignation. Above Him little angels look down or point to a cartouche on which is written “Caput Regis Gloriæ Spinis Coranatur.” In the left hand division of the fresco and on the right, the fore-ground is filled with kneeling figures whose heads are supposed to be portraits of the most prominent members of the Society. Clearly they are all men who have achieved some measure of honour and distinction. Above the kneeling figures on the left hand side St. John is pointing out the tragedy of the central picture to the Virgin Mary, while on the right hand side a man in armour and another who is seen faintly behind him call the attention of a third to what is happening. A crown of thorns hangs above the right and the left hand compartment and there is a landscape for background. It is recorded that this work took about six months, and was finished in March 1522 at a cost to the Society of 115 soldi. So Luini’s work looks down to-day upon a part of the great Ambrosian Library, and it may well be that the library itself will yield to patient investigation some record, however simple, of the painter’s life, sufficient perhaps to enable us to readjust our mental focus and see his lovable figure more clearly.