artists whose names it had formerly borne.

Ignoto was the title that it kept until the great and neverto-be-forgotten day when Simon Jubb adjusted his monocle, which he had allowed to drop as he passed the Sassoferratos and Carlo Dolcis, and paused to gaze upon its beauty. This very eminent person, the Lucifer of critics, the Don Juan of art with whom the reputation of no old master was safe, had lately proved that all the Botticellis in the Uffizii were Botticinis, that the Titians with a certain kind of big toe in the Venice Academy were painted by another person of the same name who lived in Cadore, and that Giorgione was only an earlier manifestation of Sairey Gamp's Mrs Harris. He was now passing like a devouring pestilence through all the public and private galleries of Rome. It was rumoured that his remarks in the Vatican had made the Pope ill; he had finally wrecked the honour of the Villa Borghese; but at last, as he halted before the Montegrigio Madonna, the whirligig of time brought in its revenges. His mission was no longer iconoclastic; it became suddenly creative.

In spite of his long career of destructive criticism, Simon Jubb felt at once that he was in the presence of a masterpiece. But he could form no theory about the identity of the painter, though, proceeding on his usual method, he was able to eliminate various artists

who might possibly have had a hand in some part of the work. He drew a tiny aluminium measuring - rod from his pocket, and discovered at once that the proportions of the feet disposed of the claims of Filippino Lippi; that the curve of the nose and the length of the left thumbnail respectively put Botticelli and Botticini hors concours. A similar process eliminated various less-known Florentines, and an hour later Simon Jubb was able to realise that he was the happy discoverer of a new old master. There remained, of course, the possibility that the picture was a modern forgery; but when he had inspected it through a strong glass he saw that its original surface had been prepared with equal portions of Turkish oil and white of egg a method which had defied the most cunning and enthusiastic tricksters. It was not modern; it was painted by one of the recognised great artists, and in all his experience he had never seen picture which he could confidently assert to be another work of the the hand which produced it. His task was clear; he had to find a name for the painter, and he had to find, if possible, another example of his work.

He held a consultation with the Prince, who could tell him nothing about the picture's history; nor was he able to discover by what means, or how long how long ago, the lonely Englishman who lived on the Ripetta had become possessed

technical reasons for this latter title were complicated and tedious, and shall not detain us. They may be found by the curious in one of the back numbers of the erudite Burlington Magazine

Sanderson was a young painter who had become acquainted with Jubb in Florence and had met him again in Rome. Jubb took no particular interest in modern art, regarding its votaries as purblind creatures who wasted their time in tending a fire which had in reality been long since extinct, but he liked Sanderson, who had an enthusiastic admiration for fifteenth-century Florentines and was not indisposed to venerate Jubb. When the eminent critic made his great discovery, Sanderson, who had been attempting to paint maddening sunsets at Frascati, came to Rome and rushed off at once to the Palazzo Montegrigio. There, in the usual foolish manner of artists and other lunatics, he fell madly in love with the Madonna, abandoned his sunsets and spent his time quartering Rome like a sleuth-hound in quest of other works by the great unknown. Meanwhile, Jubb, having written a great many little articles for the Italian and English papers, went to Florence and worked systematically through the collection of drawings in the Uffizii. Prince Montegrigio,

VOL. CXCI.—NO. MCLX.

for his part, put a flunkey in elegant livery at the door of the Palace, and charged each visitor a lira for the privilege of visiting the piano nobile.

After some time it seemed as if the Prince was the only fortunate member of the trio. Jubb discovered nothing which could possibly be ascribed to the Alunno, though twice aweek, on an average, he sent a telegram to the Princess which begged her to change the name to something equally farfetched. But the Princess was weary of changes which made her artistic friends reproach her, and she ignored the telegrams. Sanderson, having visited all the larger galleries, invaded private houses so incessantly that he felt like a gas-inspector; he was amazed at the wealth of good painting to be found in them, and yet more amazed by the comic variety of the modern Italian artistic sense; but he found no picture that resembled his beloved Madonna, and by that time his passion for her had grown so intense that he was glad. He wanted her to be unique: he felt that he would have loved Simonetta more if Botticelli

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had painted her less often. After he had violated the privacy of every house in Rome that was reported to contain an old picture, he began to ransack the shops, and obtained a startling insight into the evil soul of the modern copyist. No one, however, he thanked Heaven, had troubled to copy his Madonna.

At last he decided to abandon the quest so far as Rome was concerned and to meet Jubb in Florence. It was possible that in Prato or Pistoja, or even in some of the villages of the Casentino, they might find a clue. Before leaving Rome he gave himself three days' holiday which he passed amongst the sculpture of the Capitol, the Terme, and the Vatican. On the afternoon of the third day he was returning from St Peter's through the Borgo, and had paused to admire an extraordinarily fine vegetable shop in that ancient quarter; for Sanderson, like all true artists, loved a pageant of vegetables, and it is only in Italy that you find such pageants at their best. His eyes feasted for some moments on the deep, restful green of the leaves, the vivid reds and oranges of the beets and carrots, the sunny, jovial gold of the pumpkins, and the subtle greys and browns of the onions and leeks. He was about to proceed on his way when his eye fell on a small window which was almost concealed by some large wicker crates of fennel. In the window was one old picture, a Byzantine Madonna with an olive-green

face and an ugly scowl. Evidently the window belonged to a dealer in antiques, but he had passed down the street twenty times during his quest and never seen it, thanks to the neighbouring greengrocer.

Alongside the window was a small door. Sanderson picked his way towards it through the vegetables, and when he reached it he found himself gazing into an almost completely dark cave. He was hesitating there amongst the strings of onions, like a shy nymph in a leafy bower, when a pleasant voice, speaking Italian, invited him to enter.

a

A moment later there was the sound of an inner door being hastily closed, and then a personage who was probably the owner of the voice came to meet him on the threshold. He was a very corpulent old man, with yellow, wrinkled face and long grey hair that fell in ringlets to his collar; he was cleanshaven and benevolent-looking, and altogether, Sanderson thought, he had decidedly the air of an unfrocked priest. He smiled amiably at Sanderson, and made a polite gesture with very fat, flabby white hands.

"The signore wishes to see the picture?" he inquired.

"That or any other, if you please," replied Sanderson. The old man ushered him into the room, and when his eyes had grown used to the dim light he saw that the walls were hung with pictures, mostly, as far as he could judge, copies of primitives like the Madonna in the window. The room was crowded with

tables, and the tables were strewn with the rubbish that is the usual stock-in-trade of the small dealer in bric-a-brac -strings of beads, medallions of Pius IX. and Vittorio Emmanuele II., tinsel votive offerings, scraps of dried palmleaves, religious prints in primary colours, mouldering bronze coins of the Empire, snuff-boxes, fans, brass rings, ugly cameos, bad intaglios, and a dilapidated stuffed rabbit. The atmosphere was heavily oppressive; the old man seemed to have been trying to counteract the powerful aroma of his neighbour's onions with the rankest of tobacco.

"The signore is an artist?" asked the old man, pointing to Sanderson's sketch-book. "I have, I fear, few interesting pictures. In old times my

collection was celebrated. the best are gone."

But

"It is rather difficult to see your pictures," said Sanderson. "I shouldn't like your room as a studio," he added, peering at the dim and gloomy visage of a warrior which hung close to him.

"Ah, I do not paint, signore," said the old man. 66 "Once, long ago, in a small way, but nowI am content to admire the work of others. But I will give you more light." He went outside, and by the simple process of upsetting a couple of the crates of fennel he contrived to admit a startling quantity of evening sunlight. Sanderson examined the pictures. They were just what he had expected: daubed copies of artists who had been

popular half a century ago, a few mouldy primitives that might or might not be genuine but had all been badly touchedup, a series of scenes in the Campagna of the lifeless oleographic type, and a couple of portraits, rather cleverly painted, but obviously by a modern hand. His host walked round the room with him, but made no effort to praise the pictures. He spoke, indeed, of all of them with indulgent contempt.

"They are very ugly, signore," he said, "but yet I keep them. They are the dregs of my collection, too bad to sell, but I have had them many years. It is but rarely that the forestieri visit me now, and when they do I dissuade them from buying. One has been an artist and one has a conscience. If it were not for old associations I would burn them all."

The attitude, if it were genuine, thought Sanderson, was most unusual in a Roman of that particular profession. But when the old man had talked for a little while the painter began to feel that he belonged to the rather indefinable class which in England is called gentle; he had an ease, a distinction which was subtly different from the usual good manners of the Italian. His reminiscences of Rome appeared to extend very far back; he talked of great works of art which had been for sale at ridiculously low prices in the fifties and sixties,-in the days when it was still possible for the connoisseur to find a