Pictures in Umbria

by Katharine S. Macquoid

We entered the town under a quaint and ancient gateway, the Porta Veneris of Hispellum, for Spello is an old Roman town, and the ancient walls and some of the gates have been preserved. This gate has three figures outside it, a picturesque fountain stands near, and to-day beside it sat a group of handsome peasants, eating and drinking in the sunshine.

PORTA VENERIS, SPELLO.

We thought the steep old street was full of pictures for a sketcher as we drove up to the Piazza, on which is the Cathedral Santa Maria Maggiore. Entering, we were at once struck with the remarkable early fifteenth-century canopy, the work of an Umbrian sculptor, Rocca di Vicenza; it is made of the stone of the country called Cacciolfo, and has a polished surface. The four pillars are in pairs; in front of two of them the artist has introduced portraits of himself and his wife; beyond, right and left, are Madonnas by Perugino. The sacristan told us that there is a still finer specimen of the sculptor Rocca di Vicenza's work at Trevi. On the opposite side of the church is the Capella del Sacramento, the work of Pinturicchio; three of the walls and the ceiling here are covered with beautiful frescoes in delightful harmony of colour. On one side is the Annunciation, with the name and portrait of the painter, on the other walls are the Adoration and the Disputa; this last is a very interesting picture, and is also signed. On the ceiling are painted the sibyls, and the spaces between are filled with rich, harmonious colour.

PINTURICCHIO, SPELLO.

We could gladly have stayed much longer in this chapel, for the frescoes seemed to us finer specimens of Pinturicchio's work than anything we had seen at Perugia. In the sacristy is a beautiful Madonna by this painter. The mortuary chapel has a quaint pair of doors in perforated wood-work; near the west door we saw a curious square bas-relief of ancient work, on two sides of it is carved an olive-tree, and on another side a man on horseback. It looked like an old burial urn.

The way was so steep for driving, that from the cathedral we walked on in search of the woman who had the keys of the church of San Andrea. She, however, being busy, handed us over to a young fellow with a face as lovely as Raffaelle's, and with those wonderful blue eyes, which have in them the glow of an Italian sky, not to be seen in more northern regions.