CHAPTER VI
IN FULL STRENGTH
In the early spring of the year 1496 Perugino was in Venice, but in the autumn back in Florence and in Perugia, although possibly the winter saw him in Bologna. In 1497 he was in Florence, in Perugia, and in Fano. In 1498 he was in Florence, and then again at Fano.
The proof that Perugino was in Florence in 1496 consists in the document quoted by Morelli recording the purchase of certain land in Florence with a view to a permanent residence in the city.
To this year Morelli attributes the "Sposalizio" from the chapel of the Anello at Perugia, which is now at Caen. Vasari states that "for the altar of the Sacrament where the ring with which the Virgin Mary was espoused is preserved, this master painted an altar-piece representing the Marriage of Our Lady." Mariotti quotes Vasari, and on his evidence gives the picture to him, and every succeeding writer, including Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and Morelli, continues the ascription.
What is quite clear is that the company of St. Guiseppe received, as Mariotti records, the grant of a subsidy for an altar-piece; but Professor Adam Rossi states that up to November 1500 the picture had not been commenced. To 1500, therefore, Crowe attributes this picture, Morelli putting it earlier, in 1496. On these attributions a theory has been built up that Raphael in his "Sposalizio" (painted in 1503 or 1504) took as his motif the picture painted by his master Perugino, and improved considerably on the original conception. Crowe and Cavalcaselle in their inspection of the picture refer to its most striking quality, "its bright colouring," and qualify their praise by stating that "the tones have not the glow" of the master's usual work, and that "the forms are less pliant than of old." It is exactly these features that first attract the spectator and which, I must confess, puzzled me very considerably.
A little closer examination revealed the strange inequality in the surface of the picture, the stringiness and lumpiness of the draperies and the streaky character of the background. Much of my perplexity, however, ought not to have existed, inasmuch as in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, April 1896, Mr. Berenson had carefully examined the whole question, and ascribed the picture not to Perugino at all, nor to an earlier period than the Raphael "Sposalizio," but to the hand of Lo Spagna, and since 1504. With his opinion, although contrary to the accepted judgment, I am in the fullest accord, and I think that Vasari, going only upon hearsay, and with probably only a casual glance at the picture, if ever he saw it at all, makes a grave mistake when he attributes it to Pietro. Mr. Berenson examines all the evidence pro and con with his usual ability, and produces, in my opinion, overwhelming proof of his attribution. He compares the "Sposalizio" with the pictures by Lo Spagna in other places, the "Virgin and Child" at Perugia, the "Nativity" and the "Madonna and Child" at the Louvre, and the "Coronation of the Virgin," Lo Spagna's greatest work (dated 1511), and preserved at Todi.
He points out that several of the faces in these pictures are identical with faces at Caen, notably the face of the Virgin, which in every way, even in position, is the counterpart of the one in the "Nativity" in Paris. He finds the face of St. Joseph in more than one of Spagna's pictures, and especially he refers to a figure in the Caen picture, the fourth to the right, a woman wearing a hood, which never once appears in any work of Perugino's, but which does appear, line for line, not only in the Todi "Coronation," but in another of Spagna's pictures. Other points of close resemblance are to be found in the drawing of the ears, which are totally different to those of Perugino's figures; in the hands, which are broad and heavy in the Caen picture and in Lo Spagna's usual work, but fine and delicate in Perugino's; and especially in the colouring, certain special tints such as a chartreuse-green and rose-salmon appearing in the Caen and Todi pictures, and never once to be found in Perugino's accepted work.
One very instructive set of arguments Mr. Berenson draws from a close examination of Raphael's "Sposalizio" at Milan. Its shape is upright. Perugino always represented the scene in a long, narrow panel, the position of the Virgin and St. Joseph, and of the branch carried by St. Joseph, are entirely antithetical to the Umbrian fashion, while, curiously enough, Lorenzo Costa, who was probably a fellow-pupil of Raphael's, under the influence of Timoteo Vite, painted in about 1504 or 1505 a "Sposalizio," upright as is this one, at Caen, and agreeing with it in many other ways. A masterly piece of reasoning shows that Raphael's work is of the Ferrarese school and not of the Umbrian, and that instead of its being a souvenir of the Caen picture, and based upon it and greatly improved, it is, in fact, an original work upon which Lo Spagna based his picture which is now at Caen. When to these arguments are added the want of style and dignity in the Bramantesque temple at Caen, the absence of the colonnade that Perugino favoured, and which he drew from Piero della Francesca, the want of intermediate grouping, the stubborn heaviness of the draperies, so different from Perugino's light, easy folds, the hard, empty density of the foliage, the change in the distant scenery, and the absence of horizon and cloud, and finally the entirely different drawing of the feet from the manner in which Perugino drew them, the case is practically proved, and to Lo Spagna must the Caen picture be attributed. If further evidence were needed, it is ready to hand in the fact that not one Perugian letter, document, or writer attributes the "Sposalizio" to Perugino, although all speak of it with great terms of reverence, while Vasari alone gives it to Vannucci, and, as is well known, his attributions must often be taken cum grano salis.