Alinari photo] [Library, Siena
ÆNEAS PICCOLOMINI ON HIS WAY TO THE COUNCIL OF BASEL
Schmarsow sees a resemblance to Raphael’s style in the sketch for the “Conference” (IV.)—in the lines of composition, and in the more graceful and life-like action of the Pope’s head and some of the groups at the side;—the two fine figures in front in the fresco, which are unmistakably by Pintoricchio, do not exist in the drawing.
The drawing at Milan, of fresco III., the “Poet Crowned,” is now known to be a sketch from the finished fresco, and though it is under Raphael’s name, is not worthy of notice. There are, however, at Oxford two studies of four pages, the style and technique of which point to Raphael. These appear in the fresco. They are the pike-bearer and standard-bearer, with legs apart, in the background of the company, and the page in front of them leaning on a stick. The loggia in the background accords well with the style of Raphael’s buildings. His taste for architectural backgrounds was quite as keen as that of Pintoricchio, and he had been in intimate relation with Bramante and with Luciano Lauranna, the architect, who was his kinsman, when he came to Perugia. Certain details in this remind us of the loggia of the Castle of Urbino, with which, of course, Raphael was well acquainted. What is most unlike Pintoricchio, and very characteristic of Raphael, in this fresco, is the concentration of interest, the way in which the attention is insensibly attracted to the principal figure; the poetic moment is caught in a way which points to Raphael’s quality of composition. Here and there are figures of a freshness and grace which speak to us of the freer hand of the youthful artist pressing forward and casting aside old methods. Such is the young prince in the second fresco, with plumed hat, who stands at the left of the King of Scotland.
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.
Born in 1405, at the little village of Corsignano, afterwards re-named Pienza, Æneas Piccolomini early showed a keenness of intellect and an aptitude for classic learning which induced his tutor, the great scholar Fidelfo, to send the needy young scion of a great house out into the world to seek his fortune, with introductions which carried him into the service of Domenico Capranica, Bishop of Fermo, that Cardinal whose tomb may be seen in Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. Domenico made him his secretary, and, as he was on his way to the Council at Basel, he took Æneas in his suite. The story told by the frescoes begins here.
The cavalcade, having narrowly escaped shipwreck on the Libyan strand and landed at Genoa, are setting forth on their “Journey across the Apennines to Basel.” Behind them is the sea; in the sky the great storm-clouds are passing away, and the rainbow shines out. Above the bay we discern the town, the point where now stands the Doria Palace and its gardens; the solemn churchmen journeying forward on their sedate mules. In the foreground rides Æneas and a youthful follower. The whole of the attention centres in the bright handsome figure of Æneas; our interest is at once bespoken on behalf of the gallant young adventurer going forth on his spirited white horse to seek his fortune. The young man on the bay horse beyond him, another layman among the throng of clerics and dignitaries, may be intended for his brother-secretary, Piero da Noceto. This is one of the most charming of the frescoes, full of movement and gaiety. Pintoricchio does not give much prominence to the “Conference at Basel,” which was one of anti-Papal tendencies.
In the next fresco we find the young Piccolomini on a “Mission to James I. of Scotland,” to whom he was despatched by the Cardinal of Santa Croce, an able and influential man, into whose service he had entered in 1440, and who sent him to persuade the King of Scotland to cross the Border and to menace the King of England. His interview with James I. forms the subject of the second fresco. The King, in yellow robes, and the two supporters on either hand, in blue and green, are the most prominent figures, and form between them a sort of triangle, a symmetrical manner of composition which was just coming into favour. We have to look for the beautiful and graceful figure of Æneas as, full of dignity, he comes forward to the side of the King’s throne—his gesture in telling the points of his message upon his fingers is that which Pintoricchio makes use of in “St. Catherine before the Philosophers”; but this is a much more natural and easy attitude. His dark red robe and violet mantle hang in simple and voluminous folds. With his flowing hair he might be a young St. John taken out of one of Perugino’s pictures. The background here is very beautiful, seen through the airy row of cinque-cento arches, with the sunny little town in the distance reflected in the lake. In his memoirs, the young secretary has left us a most graphic description of his impressions of Scotland, of his journey north from Dover, of the comely blue-eyed women and scantily-clothed men, and comments on the singular kind of sulphurous stone which they burn instead of wood. He gives a vivid picture of these islands in the first half of the fifteenth century; but the painter had no knowledge to enable him to grasp it. He has apparently heard that Scotland was a land of lakes and mountains; but though the interview took place in mid-winter, he has made the trees in full leaf.