IN the first quarter of the seventeenth century few patrons in Rome commissioned as many works of art, and in particular as many frescoes, as did Cardinal Alessandro Peretti-Montalto.* His influence, especially on the history of painting, was considerable. It was he, for example, who assigned to Domenichino and Lanfranco the decoration of S. Andrea della Valle, although it was eventually executed after his death.

PIETRO DA CORTONA had been working for more than four years on the vault of the salone of Palazzo Barberini (Figs. 19-20) when he experienced difficulties that led him to reconsider much of what he had accomplished up to that time.* Displeased with the then nearly completed work, he left Rome for northern Italy in the spring of 1637 to see the illusionistic ceiling paintings of Parma, Mantua, and Venice, in search of a solution to formal problems he had encountered in his Roman commission. There is now sufficient evidence to suggest that, on his return, Cortona destroyed a large section of the fresco and replaced it with a more persuasive illusionistic system. After six years of almost incessant struggle, he finally finished the monumental painting and revealed it to the appreciative eyes of his patrons. Urban VIII, without false modesty, compared the salone ceiling of his family palace to the Vatican Stanze of Raphael; but some jealous professional peers were critical of the work. General opinion found the painting's subject scarcely suitable to the family palace of a pope, and even Poussin's more considered assessment held the composition to be marred by inconsistent lighting, indecorous foreshortenings, and landscapes 'aloft'.

FROM its earliest history, the confraternity of Santo Spirito in Rome acted as the charitable arm of the papacy.* Its duties included the sheltering of pilgrims and orphans, ministering to the sick, and providing dowries to poor women. In the middle ages its seat, the church of S. Spirito in Sassia and its adjacent hospital, was built and funded by the papacy. Sixtus IV rebuilt the hospital between 1472 and 1474, and the tradition of papal patronage received new impetus under Paul III, who caused the church to be reconstructed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger between 1539 and 1545.

THE shocking recent history of one of Carlo Dolci's most import- ant paintings, the Miraculous presentation of an image of St Dominic by the Virgin to the Church at Soriano painted for the church of S. Andrea a Cennano in Montevarchi, has been recounted else- where by the present writer.' After a chequered provenance, it was bought in the nineteenth century for Cobham Hall, Kent, and remained there until auctioned for a derisory sum in London in 1957. It was subsequently cut into more potentially saleable fragments. Most of these have so far eluded rediscovery: one was known from a photograph, and was illustrated in the litera- ture cited above. An additional fragment has now been identified (Fig.45),2 and with the aid of this and another group of recently discovered photographs, it is possible to examine the image of the picture while still intact in its last setting, the Picture Gallery at Cobham. The new fragment depicts a monk from the waist upwards, holding the corner of the canvas bearing the Virgin's image.

painted for the church of S. Andrea a Cennano in Montevarchi, has been recounted else- where by the present writer.' After a chequered provenance, it was bought in the nineteenth century for Cobham Hall, Kent, and remained there until auctioned for a derisory sum in London in 1957. It was subsequently cut into more potentially saleable fragments. Most of these have so far eluded rediscovery: one was known from a photograph, and was illustrated in the litera- ture cited above. An additional fragment has now been identified (Fig.45),2 and with the aid of this and another group of recently discovered photographs, it is possible to examine the image of the picture while still intact in its last setting, the Picture Gallery at Cobham. The new fragment depicts a monk from the waist upwards, holding the corner of the canvas bearing the Virgin's image.

THE anonymous biographer of Filippo Juvarra relates that, after entering the studio of Carlo Fontana, the young architect was sent to draw the monuments of Rome. The author adds that Juvarra left no good doorway or window in the city un- drawn.1 I have recently identified an unpublished manuscript in the Vatican Library that confirms the words of the Anony- mous Life, and adds 172 images to the corpus of early Juvarra drawings.2 The 129 folios of the Vatican album do indeed present a cornucopia of windows and doorways among an array of images that chronicle the architect's early interest in the monuments of baroque Rome. It also contains what may be some ofJuvarra's earliest known drawings.

JONATHAN MAYNE was of a retiring disposition and this, together with the fact that he left the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1977, has meant that his name is no longer as widely known as his work merits. For he had a distinguished mind, an elegant pen and a stimulating interest in the literature and art of nineteenth- century England and France.