Boccati da Camerino’s work is rare. There is a charming thing of his in Sala VI. (No. 13): a Madonna and a fascinating choir of angels. His largest picture (No. 16) is in the same room and represents the same subject. The Madonna sits enthroned under a heavy pergola of roses, and all around her is a stiff little choir of angels: a most delightful and original conception. The picture was painted for the monks of S. Domenico, and so the emblem of the saint, his dog, had to figure in it. What Boccati was about we cannot judge, but he certainly painted an ermine instead of a dog, and the little Christ receives the strange beast with delight. The predella of the picture is full of stories almost in the style of Carpaccio. Boccati had a rare and charming fancy. In his scene of the procession to Calvary, he shows how a rude soldier attempts to strike the fainting figure of Christ; and one of the horses of the guard, with ears bent back, stoops forward to bite the hand of him who would distress the Saviour.
Rooms VIII. and IX.
Sala di Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, Gabinetto di Fiorenzo di Lorenzo.
We now come to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, to whose name two rooms in the Pinacoteca have been dedicated. Very little is known about his life. We can only gather that he studied in the school of Bonfigli, and that he competed with Bonfigli in the painting of banners. He may have been a rather younger man, but he was earlier than Perugino and his scholars, and so he forms a sort of link between the masters and the pupils of a great school.
Fiorenzo may be said to have begun the school which now is called the school of Perugino. It was he who distinctly and for ever broke away from that Greek or Byzantine influence which we feel in much of Bonfigli’s work. In his own day he was eclipsed by the greater lights which rose up round him, and it is only to us, who try to trace the school, that he is such a really important and delightful figure. Throughout his work one feels a great effort towards light—towards fresh issues. His drawing and his colour are often very beautiful, but there is a great difference in the style of the various works ascribed to him. Compare No. 53 (Sala VIII.) and its surrounding panels, with Nos. 30, 6, and 5. (The three latter probably all formed part of one large altar-piece.)
The Adoration, attributed to Fiorenzo, is a crowded but a beautiful composition. The Virgin, S. Joseph, and a group of shepherds kneel in the foreground, and exquisite flowers, grape-hyacinths,
