But this is nothing better than a dream. Blankly one looks at the slab above the door, at the wall from which even the frescoe of S. Christopher has vanished, and from the utter silence of the place one hurries away and further on down the Via dei Priori. The street ends, and one passes into the open country through the Porta S. Susanna. Just above is the Torre degli Scirri—one of the only specimens remaining of all the wealth of towers in the past. A tree has grown upon its very top as though to seal the peace which follows after strife. A little further on is the small church of the Madonna della Luce. The front of this church is a very dainty bit of architecture and was designed by Cesarino Roscetto, a Perugian goldsmith, who also made the silver shrine in the cathedral which holds the Virgin’s ring. It has inside a beautiful altar piece by some scholar of Perugino. The picture is exquisite in colour and in sentiment. Siepi gives a long history about it, which, although it does not altogether fit in with the facts of dates, we cannot refrain from mentioning here. (Perhaps he was alluding to some older fresco which has disappeared.) He says that on the 12th of September 1513 some youths were playing at cards under the
wall of a butcher’s shop which in old days stood outside the church of S. Francesco. One of them, a young barber, called Fallerio, lost heavily at the game, whereat he swore a terrible oath, hearing which blasphemy the Madonna in her shrine by the wayside closed her eyes, and kept them closed for the space of four whole days. On the 16th she opened them again. So great was the fame of this miracle, and the sensation it caused, that processions and great multitudes of people came to worship before her shrine, and on the 7th of April 1513 her picture was carried to its present place in the new church which the people built for her, and she was no longer called the Madonna di S. Luca, but the Madonna of Light to commemorate this wonderful occurrence.
From the church one road leads out into the country through the old Etruscan gate of S. Luca and another to the right into the Piazza della Giustizia: that fair open green which holds one of the loveliest flowers of Renaissance art—the façade of the Oratory of S. Bernardino.
S. Bernardino.
The Oratory was built in 1450 by the magistrates of Perugia, who were anxious to leave to their city some enduring mark of the man whose influence in times of extreme moral depravity and perpetual party strife had been so purely one of good to the citizens of Perugia. The life of S. Bernardino of Siena is familiar to most people. He, like S. Francis, exercised an extraordinary power over the minds of men in the middle ages by the mere example of pure living and sweetness of character, but perhaps his power lay a little more in preaching and in stirring men to action than that of the saint of Assisi, whose influence was more absolutely that of peace.
S. Bernardino of Siena was born at Massa, near Siena, in 1380. His mother died early, leaving the child to the care of an aunt. By this lady, Diana degli Albizeschi, he was educated with extreme care and tenderness, and he grew up beautiful, gracious, and very pure of heart. At seventeen he joined a confraternity at Siena, and by the early age of twenty-four he had already shaken an always weak constitution by his great labours for the sick in the time of plague. He died at Aquila in the Abruzzi, and was canonized in 1450 by Pope Nicholas V. S. Bernardino’s life was one perpetual strain towards the light in an age which was dark, and one of its greatest objects had been to reconcile the mutual hatred of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. He was full of child-like faith and wise philanthropy; and tradition says that it was he who started the first Monte di Pietà or pawnshop, and Perugia claims the privilege of having seen the first of these institutions.[77]