693. ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA.
Pinturicchio (Umbrian: 1454-1513).
Bernardino di Betto, or the son of Benedetto, was commonly called Pinturicchio, "the little painter." He is not strongly represented in our Gallery. His principal works are the decorated ceiling and frescoes in the Library of Siena, which represent the life of the Pope Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II.). A drawing of this Library and copies of some of the frescoes are in the Arundel Society's Collection. Pinturicchio, says Symonds, is "a kind of Umbrian Gozzoli, who brings us here and there in close relation to the men of his own time. His wall-paintings in the library of the Cathedral of Siena are so well preserved that we need not seek elsewhere for better specimens of the decorative art most highly prized in the first years of the 16th century. These frescoes have a richness of effect and a vivacity of natural action which, in spite of their superficiality, render them highly charming. The life of Pius II. is treated like a legend. Both Pope and Emperor are romantically conceived, and each portion of the tale is told as though it were a part in some popular ballad. So much remains of Perugian affectation as gives a kind of childlike grace to the studied attitudes and many-coloured groups of elegant young men" (Renaissance, iii. 220). In the foreground of one of the frescoes is a charming figure, supposed to be a portrait of the young Raphael. Vasari states and subsequent writers have repeated that Pinturicchio was assisted in these frescoes by Raphael. This supposition rests on three drawings attributed to Raphael, but now proved to be by Pinturicchio, who bound himself to execute the whole work with his own hand. Morelli's attribution to Pinturicchio of the so-called "Raphael's sketch-book" at Venice is one of the most important of that critic's discoveries. "If (says Morelli) in representing serious religious subjects, he does not come up to Perugino as regards proportion, finish, and the filling of space; if his forms are not so noble, and the expression of religious sentiment not so deep as in Pietro; yet, on the other hand, Pinturicchio is, to my mind, less conscious, more fresh and racy than Perugino, and does not so often fatigue us by monotony and that conventional sweetness which, especially in the productions of his last twenty years, makes Pietro positively wearisome. And, as an imaginative landscape-painter, Pinturicchio surpasses almost all of his contemporaries" (German Galleries, p. 285). Pinturicchio's frescoes at Siena occupied him from 1502 to 1509. He probably studied first under Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (No. 1103); afterwards he entered into partnership with Pietro Perugino. He went to Rome in 1479 and was honoured by commissions from cardinals and popes. Among his works in Rome are frescoes representing the stories of the Virgin and St. Jerome in S. Maria del Popolo; frescoes in the Appartamenti Borgia in the Vatican, and frescoes of S. Bernardino of Siena in the Bufalini Chapel, S. Maria Aracoeli. Morelli attributes to him also two of the frescoes in the Sixtine Chapel (the Baptism of Christ and the History of Moses). In 1500 he commenced the beautiful series of frescoes, now much disfigured, in the collegiate church at Spello (see Arundel Society's copies). That he was held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens is shown by his having been elected in 1501 Decemvir of Perugia in place of Pietro Perugino. Unlike Perugino, he never mastered the use of oil, but painted in tempera. Vasari, who did not like Pinturicchio, describes him as somewhat of a hack, and still more of a lover of money. "Among other qualities he possessed that of giving considerable satisfaction to princes and nobles because he quickly brought the works commanded by them to an end." As for his love of money, he died of vexation, Vasari assures us, "because a certain trunk which he had insisted on being removed from his painting-room in Siena was afterwards found to be full of gold pieces." According, however, to a contemporary writer, his wife left him alone in his house when ill, and he was starved to death.
St. Catherine of Alexandria was of all the female saints next to Mary Magdalene the most popular: she meets us in nearly every room in the National Gallery, and even in London, churches and districts once placed under her protection still retain her name. Her general attributes are a book, a sword, and a wheel. The meaning of these will be seen from the legend of her which crusaders brought from the East. She was the daughter of a queen, and of marvellous wisdom and understanding. And when the time came that she should govern her people, she, shunning responsibility and preferring wisdom before sovereignty, shut herself up in her palace and gave her mind to the study of philosophy. For this wilful seclusiveness her people wished her to marry a husband who should at once fulfil the duties of government and lead them forth to battle. But she, to prevent this repugnant union, made one more spiritual by her mystical marriage with Christ. And for this and other unworldly persistencies, the heathen tyrant Maximin would have broken her on a wheel, but that "fire came down from heaven, sent by the destroying angel of God, and broke the wheel in pieces." Yet for all this the tyrant repented not, and after scourging St. Catherine with rods beheaded her with the sword, and so having won the martyr's palm, she entered into the joy of her Lord.