There are other artists of less celebrity in Perugia, though not omitted by Vasari. Eusebio da S. Giorgio painted in the church of S. Francesco di Matelica, a picture with several saints, and on the grado, part of the history of S. Anthony, with his name, and the year 1512. We may recognize in it the drawing of Perugino, but the colouring is feeble. His picture of the Magi at S. Agostino is better coloured, and in this he followed Paris. The works of Giannicola da Perugia, a good colourist, and therefore willingly received by Pietro to assist him in his labours, however inferior to that artist in design and perspective, are recognized in the Cappella del Cambio, which is near the celebrated sala of Perugino, and was painted by him with the life of John the Baptist. In the church of S. Thomas, is his picture of that Apostle about to touch the wounds of our Saviour, and excepting a degree of sameness in the heads, it possesses much of the character of Perugino. Giambatista Caporali, erroneously called Benedetto by Vasari, Baldinucci, and others, holds likewise a moderate rank in this school, and is more celebrated among the architects. Giulio, his natural son, afterwards legitimatized, also cultivated the same profession.
The succeeding names belonging to this school are not mentioned by Vasari; a circumstance which does not prove the impropriety of their admission, as there are many deserving of notice. Mariotti, our guide in the chronology of this age, and a correct judge of the conformity of style, notices Mariano di Ser Eusterio, whom Vasari calls Mariano da Perugia (tom. iv. p. 162), referring to a picture in the church of S. Agostino in Ancona, which is "not of much interest." In opposition to this opinion of Vasari, however, Mariotti adduces another picture, of a respectable class, by Mariano, to be found in S. Domenico di Perugia; whence we may conclude that this painting is deserving of a place in the history of art. He also mentions Berto di Giovanni, whom Raffaello engaged as his assistant to paint a picture for the monks of Monteluci (of which we shall speak in our notice of Penni) and who was appointed in this contract by Raphael himself to paint the grado. This grado is in the sacristy, and is so entirely in the manner of Raffaello, in the history of the virgin which it represents, that we may conclude either that Raffaello made the design, or that it was painted by one of his school. If it was by Berto, it proves him to have been one of those who exchanged the school of Perugino for that of Raffaello; and if he did not paint it, he must always be held in consideration for the regard he received from the master of the art. Of this artist more information may be obtained from Bianconi, in the Antologia Romana, vol. iii. p. 121. Mariotti enumerates also Sinibaldo da Perugia, who must be esteemed an excellent painter from his works in his native place, and more so from those in the cathedral at Gubbio, where he painted a fine picture in 1505, and a gonfalon still more beautiful, which would rank him among the first artists of the ancient school. To the above painters Pascoli adds a female artist of the name of Teodora Danti, who painted cabinet pictures in the style of Perugino and his scholars.
From tradition, as well as conjecture, we may notice in Città di Castello a Francesco of that city, a scholar of Perugino, who, in an altarpiece in the church of the Conventuals, left an Annunciation with a fine landscape. He is named in the Guida di Roma, in the account of the chapel of S. Bernardino in Ara Caeli, where he is supposed to have worked with Pinturicchio and Signorelli. There is a conjecture, though no decided proof, that a Giacomo di Guglielmo was a pupil of Pietro, who, at Castel della Pieve, his native place, painted a gonfalon, estimated by good judges in Perugia at sixty-five florins; and also a Tiberio di Assisi, who, in many of the coloured lunettes in the convent degli Angeli, containing the history of the Life of S. Francis, shews clearly that Perugino was his prototype, though he had not talent enough to imitate him. Besides Tiberio, some have assigned to the instructions of Perugino, the most eminent painter of Assisi, Adone (or Dono) Doni, not unknown to Vasari, who often mentions him, and particularly in his life of Gherardi (vol. v. p. 142). He is there called of Ascoli, an opinion which Bottari maintains against Orlandi, who, on the best grounds, changed it to Assisi. In Ascoli he is not at all known, but he is well known in Perugia by a large picture of the Last Judgment in the church of S. Francis, and still better in Assisi, where he painted in fresco, in the church of the Angeli, the life of the founder, and of S. Stephen, and many other pieces, which, for a long period, served as a school for youth. He had very little of the ancient manner; the truth of his portraits is occasionally wonderful; his colouring is that of the latest of the scholars of Perugino; and he appears to be an artist of more correctness than spirit. I find also a Lattanzio della Marca, of the school of Perugino, commemorated by Vasari in the above mentioned life. He is thought to be the same as Lattanzio da Rimino, of whom Ridolfi makes mention, among the scholars of Giovanni Bellino, as painting a picture in Venice in rivalship with Conegliano.[[24]] We are enabled more correctly to ascertain this from a document in the possession of Mariotti, of which we shall shortly speak, from which we not only learn to a certainty his native place, but further, that he was the son of Vincenzo Pagani, a celebrated painter, as will hereafter be seen, and that both were living in the year 1553. It appears, therefore, very probable that Lattanzio was instructed by his father, and that we may doubt of his being under Bellini, who died about 1516, or under Perugino, among whose disciples he is not enumerated by the very accurate Mariotti. It seems certain, that on the death of Vannucci he succeeded to his fame, and obtained for himself some of the most important orders in Perugia, as, for instance, the great work of painting the chambers in the castle. He accomplished this task by the assistance of Raffaellino del Colle, Gherardi, Doni, and Paperello. He there commenced the picture of S. Maria del Popolo, and executed the lower part, where there is a great number of persons in the attitude of prayer; a fine expression is observable in the countenances, the figures are well disposed, the landscape beautiful, and there is a strength and clearness in the colouring, and a taste which, on the whole, is different from that of Perugino. The upper part of the picture, which is by Gherardi, has not an equal degree of force. Lattanzio finished his career by being sheriff of his native city; and of this office, a more honourable distinction than at the present day, it appears he took possession in the year 1553, and at that time renounced the art. It is certain, that, in the before mentioned paper, the Capitano Lattanzio di Vincenzo Pagani da Monte Rubbiano acknowledges to have received six scudi of gold from Sforza degli Oddi, as earnest money for a picture representing the Trinity, with four saints; and engages that in the ensuing August it should be executed by his father Vincenzo and Tommaso da Cortona, and this must be the picture still existing in the chapel of the Oddi in S. Francesco, since the figures particularized in the agreement are found there; we shall have an opportunity of noticing it again.
In the Antichità Picene, tom. xxi. p. 148, Ercole Ramazzani di Roccacontrada is recorded as a scholar of Pietro Perugino, and for some time of Raffaello. A picture of the circumcision, by him, is there mentioned to be at Castel Planio, with his name and the date of 1588; and in speaking of the artist it is added, that he possessed a beautiful style of colour, a charming invention, and a manner approaching to Barocci. I have never seen the above mentioned picture, nor the others which he left in his native city, mentioned in the Memorie of Abbondanziere: but only one by a Ramazzani di Roccacontrada, painted in the church of S. Francesco, in Matelica, in 1573. Although I cannot affirm to a certainty that this painter called himself Ercole, I still suspect him to be the same. It represents the conception of the Virgin, in which the idea of the subject is taken from Vasari, where Adam, and others of the Old Testament, are seen bound to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, as the heirs of sin, while the Virgin triumphs over them in her exemption from the penalty of the first parents. Ramazzani has adopted this design, which he had probably seen, but he has executed his picture on a much larger scale, with better colouring, and much more expression in the countenances. To conclude, we do not see a trace of the manner of Perugino, and the period at which he lived seems too late for him to have received instructions from that artist; and it is most probable that he was taught by some of his latter scholars, in whom, if I mistake not, that more fascinating than correct style of colouring had its origin, before it was adopted by Barocci.
I may further observe, that as Perugino was the most celebrated name at the beginning of the sixteenth century, many other artists of the Roman States, who studied the art about his time, are given to his school without any sufficient authority; and particularly those who retained a share of the old style. Such was a Palmerini of Urbino, a contemporary of Raphael, and probably his fellow scholar in early life, of whom there remains at S. Antonio, a picture of various saints, truly beautiful, and approaching to a more modern style. In the same style I found, in the Borghese Gallery at Rome, the Woman of Samaria at the Well, painted by a Pietro Giulianello, or perhaps da Giulianello, a little district not far from Rome; an artist deserving to be placed in the first rank of quattrocentisti, although not mentioned by any writer. There are besides, some pictures by Pietro Paolo Agabiti, who in tom. xx. of the Ant. Pic. is said to be of Masaccio, where he painted in 1531, and some time afterwards. But I have seen a work by him in the church of S. Agostino in Sassoferrato, a series of small histories, with an inscription in which he names Sassoferrato as his native place, with the date of 1514; a date that will carry him from the moderns to the better class of the old school. Lorenzo Pittori da Macerata painted in the church of the Virgin, highly esteemed for its architecture, a picture of Christ in 1533, in a manner which has been called antico moderno. Two artists, Bartolommeo, and Pompeo his son, flourished in Fano, and painted in 1534 in conjunction, in the church of S. Michele, the resurrection of Lazarus. It is wonderful to observe how little they regarded the reform which the art had undergone. These artists strictly followed the dry style of the quattrocentisti, with a thorough contempt of the modern style. Nor was the son at all modernized on leaving his father's studio. I found at S. Andrea di Pesaro a picture by him of various saints, which might have done him honour in the preceding age. Civalli mentions other works by him in a better style: and he certainly in his lifetime enjoyed a degree of reputation, and was one of the masters of Taddeo Zuccaro. There are a number of painters of this class, of whom a long list might be compiled; they are generally represented to be pupils of some well known master, and in such cases Pietro Perugino is selected; though it would be more candid to confess our ignorance on the subject.
It would be improper to pass on to another epoch of art, without adverting to the grotesque. This branch of the art is censured by Vitruvius[[25]] as a creation of portentous monsters beyond the reign of nature, transferring to canvas the dreams and ravings of a disordered fancy, as wild as the waves of a convulsed sea, lashed into a thousand varying forms by the fury of the tempest. This style took its name from the grotte, for so those beautiful antique edifices may be called, where paintings of this kind are found, covered with earth, and with buildings of a later period. This style was revived in Rome, where a greater proportion of these ancient specimens is found, and was restored at this epoch. Vasari ascribes the revival of them to Morto da Feltro, and the perfecting of the style to Giovanni da Udine. But he himself, notwithstanding the little esteem he had for Pinturicchio, calls him the friend of Morto da Feltro, and allows that he executed many works in the same manner in Castel S. Angelo. Before him too Pietro his master had painted some of the same kind in the Sala del Cambio, which Orsini says are well conceived, and to him likewise a precedent had been afforded by Benedetto Bonfigli, of whom Taja, in his description of the Vatican palace, says, that he painted for Innocent VIII. in Rome some singularly beautiful grotesques. This branch of art was afterwards cultivated in many of the schools of Italy, particularly in that of Siena. Peruzzi approved of it in architecture, and adopted it in his painting, and gave occasion to Lomazzo to offer a defence of it, and precepts, as I before noticed, and as may be seen in the sixth book of his Trattato della Pittura, chapter forty-eight.
[4] Dell'errore, che persiste, &c. see the second index. It was opposed by Crespi, in his Dissertazione Anticritica, referred to in the same index. It was also opposed by P. dell'Aquila, in the Dizionario portatile della Bibbia, tradotto dal francese, in a note of some length, on the article S. Luca.
[5] See the Opuscoli Calogeriani, tom. xliii. where a learned dissertation is inserted, which shews that this custom was introduced about the middle of the fifth century, on occasion of the Council of Ephesus.
[6] Engraved by command of the learned Cardinal Borgia. The artists began about the middle of the fifth century, to represent her with the Infant in her arms. See Opuscoli Calogeriani, as above.
[7] "The painter was a man of holy life, and a Florentine, whose name was Luca, and who was honoured by the common people with the title of saint." Lami, Deliciæ Eruditorum, tom. xv.