[82] In Bonfigli’s great gonfalone now at the Pinacoteca, but originally painted for the Oratory of S. Bernardino, we see a meeting of the Confraternities, and an admirable portrait of their chapel and their square.
[83] This Gonfalone is one of the loveliest of the series mentioned on p. 238. Like the one in the Duomo it is covered with a gauze veil, but can easily be seen with a little patient inspection.
[84] Siepi says that he cannot even imagine how old S. Martino is, but he knows that it is built upon the top of the Etruscan wall.
[85] See note p. 229.
[86] The town, like every other small Italian town, has had its complicated and tempestuous history. Its walls, many of which are very early, have suffered siege (see pp. [19], [20]); and its hills are honeycombed in places with Etruscan tombs.
[87] It is curious to note that it was Paul III. who ordered Michelangelo’s Last Judgment to be painted over Perugino’s altar-piece, and that it was also Paul III. who built his fortress on the ruins of the Baglioni palaces at Perugia.
[88] “That stupendous thief Napoleon Bonaparte.” This magnificent title was conferred on the dead Emperor by a poor little withered custodian of an Umbrian church.
[89] Since writing the above, we have been shown a very early MS., which shows that Pietro’s bones were taken from the ditch by a priest and buried under the walls of his church at Fontignano.
[90] L’Ingegno is a mysterious figure in the school of Perugino. Our National Gallery has a picture signed A. A. P. (Andreas Aloysii Pinxit) which is believed to be an authentic work of his. We have no distinct records of the man, though the pictures ascribed to him are very numerous. The best known of these are at Assisi. His work and his personality are a sort of shadow of Perugino. Vasari felt no sort of doubts about l’Ingegno; indeed he pronounced him to be the best master of Perugino’s school, and vying with Raphael in his studio. He also tells us that l’Ingegno’s glory was early withered by the curse of blindness; this fact has, however, been disproved by Rumohr, who has made very careful research upon the subject. Whatever l’Ingegno was, or whatever he did, one cannot ignore his existence in a survey of the Umbrian school, and the very fact of the mystery in which he is shrouded attracts and draws one to him.
[91] There is a beautiful bit of his work in the little old church of S. Martino at Perugia. (See p. [215.])