In the church of St. Peter, over the altar, is the picture which was painted in the following year, and is in far better condition than are the other three, and distinguished by a grace that is absent from the others. The face of St. Anthony is benevolent and expressive, but little more can be said in favour of this picture. There is, however, some strength and some tenderness in what remains of the ruined fresco in the church of St. Servi. Nearly all the fresco is gone. Part has been cut away to make a door, part has faded, part has crumbled away, part has been picked off the wall, but what remains is wonderfully beautiful. It is but a fragment, a ruined, faded bit, but it differs entirely from every other "Crucifixion" that Perugino ever painted and is full of graceful figures. The chief part that is left is the group of the holy women assisting the Virgin as she sinks to the earth in a swoon, and it is worth all the journey to Città to see this group. There is life and vigour here, this is real anguish of spirit and bitter grief depicted in the faces, and we do not in the least wonder that not only M. Broussolle, but Mrs. Vaughan and Miss Duff Gordon, who are amongst the few who have penetrated to this remote town and absorbed its spirit and its beauty, speak in words of reverence of the pathos of this scene.
In all his life Perugino never painted anything more tender and sweet than he did at St. Servi in his old home, and the fragment that remains should be guarded with infinite care, for, damaged as it is, it is most precious.
One work only remains that can be definitely attributed to the next year, 1518, and then for two years we know nothing of Perugino, although we are able to surmise as to the work that engaged his time. The 1518 picture was painted in Perugia for the great church of San Francesco al Prato. It represents San Sebastian bound to a column and attacked by archers, and is signed and dated. During the next two years, it may well be imagined that Perugino was hard at work at the great altar-piece for St. Agostino, which had been ordered before 1512.
One of the most puzzling questions which arises in a book about Perugino is how this ancona is to be reconstructed. It is scattered far and wide over Europe, and only important parts of it are now in Perugia.
One altar-piece, which is stated to have come from San Agostino, must have, I think, belonged to another altar and had nothing to do with that double ancona. It represents the Madonna with St. Nicolas, St. Bernard, St. Jerome, and St. Sebastian, and had the space below left for the tabernacle, the mark of which can still be seen.
Private photo] [Grenoble Gallery
ST. SEBASTIAN AND ST. APOLLONIA
(From the S. Agostino (Perugia) altar-piece)
Perhaps to this same period belongs the fantastic "St. John Baptist, with St. Anthony of Padua, St. Sebastian, St. Jerome, and St. Francis," painted for San Francesco al Prato. The St. Sebastian here has degenerated into a girlish fop, with elaborate head-dress and boots, and although the faces of the other three saints are pleasing and thoughtful, yet the picture is terribly degenerate, and the landscape in the rear hardly exists at all. The same faults are to be found in the typical late pictures to be found at Spello, in the church of Sta. Maria Maggiore. They are both signed and dated, and belong to 1521, and can only be admired for their colour and for the knowledge that even they reveal of the possibilities of space.