Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino

by George C. Williamson

His fellow-citizens paid him the compliment of desiring that his portrait should be identified with his important work, and probably Maturanzio composed the complimentary verses which are written beneath it, and which Perugino himself could certainly not have selected. The inscription runs:

Perdita si fuerat pingendi his retulit artem;
Si nunquam inventa est hactenus ipse dedit,

which Rev. H. R. Ware has thus rendered:

If we had lost the painter's art, 'tis here restored in better part;
If it had always been unknown, he's given it as his very own.

The portrait of the artist may well be compared with the one in the Uffizi, which was so long believed to be his, but which has now been removed from its old position and hung in the Tribuna as the portrait of Francesco delle Opere, according to the inscription on its back.

With the knowledge that the one in the Cambio is genuine, it is surprising that the Uffizi portrait should for so long have been called Perugino's, and a whole story spun to account for the words "Timete Deum" which occur in the man's hand.

In not one feature do the two portraits, however, resemble one another, and the one of Perugino in the Cambio reveals him as a man of strong, healthy appearance, of unusual determination and great power. The features reveal strong sense of ideality, good knowledge of form and of colour, and some dry, lurking humour of a cynical and malicious type. To a certain extent the face is sensual, but not lascivious or voluptuous; but its main characteristic is its determination, the ability to conquer difficulties, to labour hard and long, and to produce a vast amount of work in a short time. It is also the face of a thoughtful man, not so much of a loveable one, as of one who was masterful and resolute.

Opposite to the portrait of the artist, close by the fresco of "Prophets and Sibyls," is a label with the words, "Anno Salvt M.D.," giving the definite information in what year the work was completed. It was, I take it, at this period of Perugino's life that the great Raphael first became his pupil. Vasari's statement as to Giovanni Santi taking the lad to Pietro is unconfirmed, and must be received with caution, especially as we know that Santi died in 1494.

As has already been shown, Perugino was wandering, in the years previous to 1500, far and wide, and was seldom at Perugia for long together; and, as Morelli was the first to point out, it would have been impossible for him to give the regular and continuous instruction to the young lad Raphael at that time. In 1504 Raphael painted his "Sposalizio," in 1505 the fresco at S. Severo in Perugia, and probably it was several years previous to this that he painted the Dudley "Crucifixion." Professor Rossi of Perugia has announced that documents exist in that city proving that Raphael actually did not leave Urbino till the end of 1499. The information is quite credible, and is what might be expected; but it lacks confirmation, and when at Perugia I was quite unable to verify its statement.

The question is still an open one. Morelli gives Raphael's earlier training to Timoteo Vite, but, to my mind, produces no distinct proof of the influence of Timoteo upon the young Raphael. It is perfectly certain that the lad was a pupil to Perugino, and it is, of course, possible—although hardly conceivable—that his tuition was taking place during the busy wandering years which preceded 1500. My own notion is that the tuition began in 1499 or 1500, and that Raphael, together with the other pupils, took his part in the Cambio decoration, probably in the work of the ceiling. There is, of course, a local tradition that in two of the faces in the fresco of "Prophets and Sibyls" are immortalised the features of Raphael and Pinturicchio. Nothing is more likely. Both pupils were of unusual and remarkable appearance, and the master may quite as well have used them as his models while working with them in the room. There can be no definite proof of what part Raphael took in the scheme of decoration, but it is pleasant to conceive him as working side by side with the master whose art influenced him so strongly, and between this time and that of 1505, when the San Severo fresco was executed, Raphael may well have been assisting Perugino in all his work, and learning from him the art in which in later days he was to reign so triumphantly as king.