Peculiarities of Pintoricchio's own are repeated over and over again. The hand with outstretched finger we find no less than thirteen times. The same heads are used. The head of the greybeard on the left, in fresco I., is repeated nine times; the man with pointed beard, in front on the left of fresco II., comes in as the emperor in fresco III., and in the foreground, as a spectator, in the sixth tableau. We admire again the way in which Pintoricchio is able to divide his assistants, to use their various hands so that monotony is avoided, while imposing his own style sufficiently to produce a strikingly homogeneous impression. Instead of fighting against the amalgamated proof that Raphael had some share in the work, we may picture to ourselves the friendship that we have reason to think existed between the older man and the versatile and tactful youth, whose talent for making friends with his elders never failed him. We can imagine the deep consultation with which they must have paced these floors, and pored over sketches and designs; and if we wanted an assurance of Raphael's presence and of his employer's affection, surely the number of times that a youth is painted, for whom Raphael, to all appearance, stood as model, would supply one--not only in the careful portrait in the scene of "St. Catherine's Canonisation," but in one of the bearers to the old Pope, fresco VIII., and in the young man stepping forward, hand on hip, in fresco X., not to single out others less conspicuously like.
In the first, third, and fifth, then, Schmarsow sees the design of Raphael, and he thinks he also had some hand in numbers two and four. No doubt, after these, the composition of the remaining ones is less excellent, and there is a falling off in life and spirit.
Some of the helpers seem to come direct from Perugino's workshop. We find the prototypes of the greybeards in the Cambio--Socrates, Pericles, and the rest. In the execution of the "Betrothal," Steinmann sees signs of a Lombard's hand, in the dress and hair of the maids-of-honour, and the groups massed in the background. Sodoma was possibly working with Pintoricchio; he was in Siena this year, and Rumohr thinks he sees his hand in the distant figures of the crowning of the poet. Eusebio di San Giorgio, the Raffaelesque Perugian, was helping, and possibly also Pacchiarotto.