Note 306 — APPENDIX VI

That many of the greatest Italian painters, up to about 1500, were in the habit of illuminating religious and historical MSS. is a fact which need not here be illustrated by examples. But as the name of Perugino occurs, I may mention that one of the most perfect miniatures known to exist is the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, signed by him, in a Book of Offices of the Romish Church, purchased by me at Rome, in 1838, from Prince Albani, which now ornaments the Earl of Ashburnham's rich collection. This volume, containing several other paintings of equal merit, was executed for Giovanni di Pierantonio Bandini Baroncelli, long ambassador from the Medici at the court of Charles V., the great antiquity of whose family is sarcastically maintained by Boccaccio, on the ground that their ugliness proves them to have issued from the hands of Nature ere she had become perfect at her business!