portions of Gozzoli’s wall paintings in the Campo Santa, in the summer of 1908, informed the writer that nearly all the remaining colours on these paintings were in a powdery state on the surface of the wall, and could easily be dusted off. This rarely happens in the case of paintings which have been executed in buon or veritable fresco, and there is doubt that the chief cause of decay and of the faded appearance of many of the old Italian frescos is due to the fact that they were either executed in tempera, or in the fresco-secco method, or that they were begun in buon-fresco and finished afterwards with glazings and opaque touches of tempera colour. Many of Simon Memmi’s frescos in the Spanish Chapel, in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, were repainted or “restored” about one hundred years after his death, and Ruskin has stated that some of the restorer’s over-painting has since fallen away, revealing the very pure original work underneath.
Pietro Vanucci, better known as Pietro Perugino (1446-1524), was one of the most important artists of the Umbrian school of painting, and was Raffaelle’s early instructor. He painted many frescos in Florence, where he lived and worked for about fourteen years, and where he acquired much of the Florentine manner of design and painting. One of his most important works in Florence is the great fresco of the “Crucifixion,” with saints standing around the foot of the cross, which he painted in three compartments on the wall of the chapter-house of the Church of St. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, in the Via Colona. The design and pose of the figures in this fresco are very characteristic of Perugino’s manner, which may be seen in the upcast and wistful expression of the eyes, the pose of the heads, and devout attitudes of his standing figures. The illustrations of the two heads from this fresco, here given, are in the above respects very typical of Perugino’s work; they also admirably show his method of handling, as well as the brush-marks of the fresco. The light touches in the beard and hair of the male head are later reinforcements, but with this exception, the whole of the painting in these heads is quite likely to be the genuine work of Perugino. Another fresco in Florence, known as the “Cenacolo di Foligno,” is ascribed to Perugino; it is in the refectory of the old convent of St. Onofrio, in the Via Faenza.
This artist painted some important frescos in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, at Rome, some of which are still in existence, namely, the “Baptism of Christ,” and the “Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter.” It is recorded that he had also painted a fresco on the wall at the back of the altar in this chapel, but that it was destroyed in order to make way for Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment.” In those palmy days of great artistic activity it was evident that some difficulty was experienced in finding sufficient wall space on which the painters of
Photo. Alinari.
Plate 21.—St. Benedict, from The Crucifixion
Perugino, Church of Sta. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi