Great Masters in Painting: Perugino

horities for the "Cambio" he drew 350 ducats. From Città della Pieve he claimed twenty-five florins, but accepted, on March 29th, 1507, a house from the municipality in settl

o to do, keep the banners as a gift from him, but that if that was done he considered he ought to be paid the balance of the eleven florins that was still due to him. T

e, Giovanni Schiavone, a master carpenter, commissioned an altar-piece for St

hat living golden haze or glow which marks his finest works, and is so typical of them. It has caught and imprisoned the sunshine, and is forever brightening the room in which it hangs. The composition, too, is original; the two angels in the air do not appear in other pictures. As far as I know never did Perugino, save in this picture, represent the Madonna being crowned by angels, nor did his angels bear pa

urch of SS. Annunziata. It was commissioned by one Giovanni Batista, whose name appears upon it, and who was probably Gi

oto] [National

ONE ALTAR-

ooms he spared this ceiling out of respect to his old master. The Holy Father, prior to Raphael's arrival in Rome in 1508, had been employing the chief well-known artists of the day in his schemes; Piero della Francesca, Bramantino, Sodoma, Luca Signorelli, and others had received commissions. Raphael, who, then only in h

ter's early methods, and do not reveal the power of his more mature work. Their composition is more crowded than was Perugino's wont, but the exquisite beauty of

ot known. We are, however, told that he lodged in the Palazzo San Clemento, that he met Luca Signorelli and Pinturicchio, and that they dined together at Bramante's

t the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, on the rear wall of

stendom, was honour indeed. The "Crucifixion" somewhat closely resembled the one in the Accademia painted for the monastery of St. Jerome, but hardly anything of the artist's work now remains. The upper part of the fresco was destroyed in 1700 during the demolition of the old choir to make way for the present building, and the lower part which remains was en

o] [St. Augu

CIFIXIO

derings of the same dread scene. Two features distinguish it from other crucifixions. The pelican in its piety with its three young in their nest surmounts the Cross, a piece of symbolism used nowhere else by the artist, and

sum at once, and paid down a deposit and gave over a house in Porta Santa Anna which he had received in

ettona, so difficult of access, and situate near to Assisi, and the picture

San Girolamo, together with much smaller figures of the man and his wife who commissioned the picture. These pictures are in very bad condition, but distinctly interesting, as they differ so much from Perugino's ordinary work. Still journeying around Perugia, we find our artist visiting in 1512 and in 1513 his native town of Città della Pieve.[O] How long he stayed there is not clear, nor whether he went again and again to the town or remained there for a year or two. There are two pictures

me date, is of the "Virgin and Child with four saints," and then in a chapel is one of the "Bapt

Nearly all the fresco is gone. Part has been cut away to make a door, part has faded, part has crumbled away, part has been picked off the wall, but what remains is wonderfully beautiful. It is but a fragment, a ruined, faded bit, but it differs entirely from every other "Crucifixion" that Perugino ever painted and is full of graceful figures. The chief part that is left is the group of the holy women assisting the Virgin as she sinks to t

he did at St. Servi in his old home, and the fragment that remains should

t engaged his time. The 1518 picture was painted in Perugia for the great church of San Francesco al Prato. It represents San Sebastian bound to a column and attacked by archers, and

ino is how this ancona is to be reconstructed. It is scattered far an

and had nothing to do with that double ancona. It represents the Madonna with St. Nicolas, St. Bernard, St. J

oto] [Gren

IAN AND ST

gostino (Perug

borate head-dress and boots, and although the faces of the other three saints are pleasing and thoughtful, yet the picture is terribly degenerate, and the landscape in the rear hardly exists at all. The same faults are to be found in the typica

to] [San Sev

INITY AND V

Perugino),

nearly complete, but in the works now coming unde

his great pupil in 1505, are dignified and impressive. They are far removed from the power of early work; there is a cumbersomeness about their draperies, and a sameness in pose a

fresco is of notable interest, as the combination of the works of master and pupil, with the inscriptions recording the names of the artists and of the patrons who employed them, is unique. Sixteen years had passed since the upper fresco was painted. Raphael had mounted

have been the cause, it is quite clear that, rising superior to the quaintness, stiffness, and formality of Spell

Tiberio d' Assisi, Lo Spagna, or Manni. Works by all these men hang close by in the deserted

, glows with golden sunshine, and the landscape is full of beauty, and represents, as was so often the case, the view to be seen from the very walls of this wonderful old city. Some of the faces are formal, the draperies are coarse and stiff, and show signs of hurried work, but the sense

to] [Sta. M

ION OF THE

the pupil's own request. Then he journeyed on to Trevi, another delightful hill town, full of charm and beauty, and there, an old man of seventy-five, in the church of Sta. Maria della Lacrime, outside the town, he painted his "Adoration of the Magi.

ntinuous space of nature, the spaciousness and vastness of the distance, or bathe his pictures in the dreamy sunlight of

2, painted the "Transfiguration" for Sta. Maria Nuova, and its three predella panels now in the Perugia Gallery, and the frescoes

e feeling and tender, reverent grace, and finally, the last and unfinished work which now hangs in the National Gallery. This is a huge fresco transferred to canvas, and measures 19 ft. 6 in. long. It was executed at Fontignano in 1523, and is said to have been

inted are almost copies, one of the other, differing only in proportions. The Perugia fresco is small, the London one very large; but both are really lovely compositions, full of mysterious charm, and it is ple

ly buried at Città della Pieve, but there is absolutely nothing to support this statement. The artist was, according to local account hurriedly buried in a field, as at that time all town funerals were forbidden on

ody from Fontignano and bury him in their church, and the sons agreed to pay for the Mass. Mariotti says that there was in his time no proof that that ever was do

ught at SS. Annunziata in Florence, was unoccupied. Mariotti states that his only descendant was a grandson, one John Battista Vannucci, whose name appeared as a scholar in the University of Città della Pieve. It is, therefore, quite possible that the plague carried off not only the artist, but shortly afterwards his three sons also. Pietro's wife was one Chiare Fancelli, a very beautiful girl, whom he married, 1st September 1493, in the Canonica in Perugia. She was the daughter of Luca, an architect and surveyor in the service of the Marquis of Mantua. Tradition states that sh

on Lo Spagna, Eusebio di San Giorgio, Giovanni Batta Caporali, Tiberio d'Assisi, Giannicol

ence his success. There is no proof whatever that he was irreligious, or, as Vasari implies, atheistic, but his face betokens a mind that would not ordinarily be satisfied without argument and examination, and it was perhaps his controversial habits that obtained for him the character that Vasari has recorded. His employment by the Church, not only by the Chief Pontiff but by numerous dignitaries and by many religious orders, and the arrangement just mentioned and entered into

in that wondrous genius for representing open limitless space to which attention was given in Chapter I. Perugino is never dramatic, he is always lyric, and the

ess of dignity he could represent if he desired, but his charm is in the calm quiet of his pictures, in their tender reverence and exquisite sweetness, in their poetry rather than in their power. His creations are dreamy and contemplative, full of faith, hope, and expectation, and they embody and express the reality of a spiritual world of serene peace and satisfaction which, in its contrast