It seems to me that we have scarcely any work of his for which we can feel such unalloyed admiration as that in this little chapel in the dim old church upon the Capitoline Hill, where from the midst of classic marbles and pre-historic legends, you pass into the quiet side aisle, and the level rays of the golden evening sunshine that pour through a little west window, light up the story of the mediæval saint as illustrated by his Umbrian name-child.
Hardly any saint could have been more dear and familiar to the sons of mid-Italy than San Bernardino of Siena, the disciple of their beloved St. Francis, and one who had exercised such a strong and recent influence over his followers. He died only nine years before Pintoricchio was born, and as he grew up the little Bernardino must have heard ardent references to his holy patron from men who had crowded round the pulpit outside the cathedral in Perugia. His gonfalon, painted by Bonfigli, hung in the Church of San Bernardino. His thin face, with its pinched mouth, was familiar to every one, and stories of his wisdom, his virtue, his miracles, were fresh on men’s lips. Pintoricchio must have been well acquainted with the history of the saint’s amicable arrangement of a deadly feud which had raged between the Buffalini and the fierce Baglioni of his native town, and both as a protégé of San Bernardino and as a Perugian, the commission to paint a chapel in honour of the saint and to commemorate the healing of the quarrel must have made a special appeal to his quick and sensitive fancy. The chapel was probably the gift of Lodovico Buffalini, advocate to the papal consistory, who, we find from an inscription on a stone in the pavement, died in 1506. The painting was for many years almost concealed by a hideous wooden hatchment, and only re-opened again in the last century, which accounts for the excellent preservation it is in.
The little Gothic chapel at the extreme west end of the church lighted by a small west window, has an arched roof with crossed pieces; the side walls are divided by painted pilasters. The whole architectural decoration is in monochrome, in pale brownish grey upon a rich brown ground. On the pilasters on either side is a beautiful decoration of fruits and seed-pods in great masses, tied in with ribbons adapted from the antique, and resembling a framework by Mantegna in the Eremitani Chapel at Padua. The frescoes on the walls are separated by long slender candelabra with flaring flames, the stems formed of grotesques, masks grave and grimacing, climbing stags and gambolling putti. The arches of the roof have been profusely enriched with gold, and culminate in a blue and gold boss. Below the altar is a long procession, also in monochrome, captives and warriors, a soldier on horseback dragging a nude woman, others laden with spoils and torches, a conqueror on a triumphal car, with a naked captive bound behind; these are painted with almost impressionist touches, and the horses are much better drawn than we usually expect from Pintoricchio.
In the roof, in four triangles, are the “Four Evangelists”: St. Matthew looking up as for inspiration, dipping his pen in the ink held by a beautiful kneeling angel-figure at his side. Both this figure and that of St. Luke are very broadly and freely painted. Steinmann points out that we find them almost repeated, apparently by a scholar, in the sacristy of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. This church has been closed for two years for repairs—I have not been able to see the frescoes.
On the west, on either side of the tall narrow window, are two simulated windows. From that nearest the altar the figure of “God the Father,” surrounded by cherubs and golden rays and holding a globe, looks into the chapel and towards the fresco below on the right. The panel to the right is filled by a long row of arches in side-long perspective, and on the top of a pedestal straddles a charming little putto, reminding us of Mino da Fiesole’s children on monuments, who bears an axe and shield with the buffalo head, the crest of the Buffalini. In the background there is a trace of landscape seen through a ruined arch, and above, a lunette of the “Madonna and Child,” His foot rests on the heads of two cherubs. In the foreground kneels the small thin figure of “San Bernardino” receiving the monastic habit of the Franciscan order from a father, while his cast-off scarlet robes, his money and box of jewels, lie beside him on the ground. Following the line of the father’s gesture across the wall, we find that it is directed towards St. Francis, who kneels to receive the stigmata with an expression of deep devotion and spiritual insight that Pintoricchio has not often repeated. In the middle, under the window, two monks recount a history to three lay listeners, two of whom are evidently portraits, while a procession of horsemen rides across the background. Whether this relates to the miracle of the stigmata, or has some reference to the feud with the Baglioni, is uncertain.
It is on the opposite wall, and on that above the altar, that the painter has put forth his best efforts, and has produced work which, if he ever equalled, he never surpassed.
In the arches above the left hand wall is “San Bernardino” as he arrayed himself in camel hair and sackcloth and went into the wilderness to study, leaving his rich home and his gay companions in Siena. The population of the city comes out to interview him, grave elders with turbaned heads, young men dressed in the height of fantastic fashion. The saint, absorbed in the study of his Bible, does not even perceive them as they gaze on him with wonder mixed with reverence, recalling the devotion he has already shown during the visit of the plague to Siena. The grass on which he walks is besprinkled with spring flowers, arums with their red seed-pods, hyacinths and anemones; a little stream trickles through the green past mossy tree stumps, and the tall towers of Siena are seen afar in the valley. Below, the whole breadth of wall is devoted to the burial procession of the saint. Here is a great market-place surrounded with airy buildings, such buildings as Fiorenzo had used in those other legends of San Bernardino, which Pintoricchio would naturally have thought of as he drew his design; indeed, we have little difficulty in tracing those which he specially adopted.
Anderson photo] [Church of Ara Cœli, Rome
THE BURIAL OF SAN BERNARDINO