The Story of Perugia

by Margaret Symonds; Lina Duff Gordon

Sala del Perugino.

An irresistible sense of sadness creeps over us as we pass through the room which bears the name of Pietro Perugino. Looking at the collection one feels much in the same frame of mind as one does in searching the wearisome domestic letters of a genius. Only one or two of the pictures attributed to Vannucci in the Pinacoteca of Perugia have the touch of the spirit in them. No. 25, which is double-sided like most of the altar-pieces of convents, where the one side faced the congregation and the other the monks or nuns, is a beautiful bit of Perugino’s work, fine both in colour and in sentiment. No. 10, too, is a small gem from one of Pietro’s really beautiful altar-pieces.[100] Nos. 20 and 4 are fragments of one enormous altar-piece (see p. [190]), which used to hang in the church of S. Agostino and which like many others of Pietro’s finest works was torn to pieces, and carried across the Alps to swell the galleries of Napoleon. One hurries shuddering past pictures like Nos. 1, 5, and 26. It seems so impossible that what the Germans call a “Schöne Seele” should have allowed such things to be.

Room XI.

Sala di Bernardino di Betto detto il Pinturicchio.

In the little room which leads out of Room X. we make an interesting study of Perugino’s pictures, for it contains some of his earliest and also some of his most decadent work. Had the municipality of Perugia just a touch of humour or malice when they hung No. 25 side by side with No. 16? Whatever they had in their heads they have given to us a curious study. Here are two works by the same man, the latter probably a pot-boiler of his school but still burdened with his name. Both represent precisely the same subject, the same set of saints is in each of them; but the early work is full of thought, of reverence and feeling; the early Sebastian, calm and grave, has the arrow in his very flesh, and the later Sebastian, simpering and affected, toys with his arrow and turns with painful affectation to the Saviour. There is a lovely little set of sketches on the predella under No. 6; the Nativity, a mere hurried impression, seems full of the breeze of early spring in Umbria.

We have a splendid bit of Pinturicchio’s work in this room which bears his name, and also one of the rare paintings of Lo Spagna; one or two pictures which bear at least the name of Raphael, and the much disputed “Adoration” which has been ascribed to more than one distinguished person.

Bernardino di Betto, usually known as Pinturicchio and sometimes as il Sordicchio because he was deaf, and small and of a mean appearance, studied in the school of Perugia, and indeed was one of its most distinguished painters; but having left that earliest studio he carried his talents to other parts, and painted as we know for popes and princes, painted above all things those two wonderful series of frescoes in the Duomo at Siena and in the Borgia rooms at the Vatican. He has been called sometimes the Umbrian Gozzoli; certainly he was the historical painter of the great school which grew in the times of Perugino. Vasari with a certain prejudice and ill nature insists that Pinturicchio’s success was one rather of opportunity than of talent; but it is much more probable that the painter was beloved because he was faithful to his promises and carried out his orders with care and with precision. We know, too, that after all the sums he got, and all his heavy labours, he died of hunger and neglect on a winter’s night at Siena, his wife having deserted him and eloped with a new lover.

Pinturicchio had a grant of land given to him in the neighbourhood of Perugia in 1495, by Alexander VI., and he determined to return to his native city and live there; but some years later, when in money difficulties, he was forced to sell it to a gentleman of Perugia.

The splendid altar-piece (No. 10), which alone remains to Perugia of this distinguished pupil of Perugino, is ill lighted and rather difficult to judge from top to bottom, but is interesting as well as beautiful; for the picture remains just as the painter painted it with all its panels in their proper order, unlike the panels of so many of Perugino’s finest altar-pieces. The Pietà, the angel of the Annunciation, both the figures of the Virgin and the detail of their dresses, fruit and books, are exquisitely finished.

There is in the same room an excellent specimen of the work of another of Perugino’s scholars—Lo Spagna (No. 7). Giovanni di Pietro was one of the most distinguished of Vannucci’s school, and Kugler indeed pronounces him to be the most distinguished after Raphael. It is probable that he studied with Fiorenzo di Lorenzo before going to Vannucci’s studio, but it is difficult to discover any details about his private life. His whole career is shrouded in some mystery. His name would make one think he was Spanish by birth. We know that he left Perugia and went to live at Spoleto. Vasari declares that this was because the painters of Perugia were jealous of him and made life in their midst impossible; this fact is however severely denied by our gossip Mariotti, who declares that Lo Spagna was excessively well off in Spoleto, where he not only received the rights of citizenship but also secured a charming wife. Be all this as it may, of this really good artist, who combined in his work the influence of Raphael and of Perugino, only one piece is left in the place where he learned his art. The Madonna and Saints (No. 7) is a fine specimen of his work. The mother and the child are fresh and beautiful in colour and expression, and all the details of the dresses and the landscape infinitely careful. Note St Jerome, his gloves, his book, his hat and splendid gown. One other picture is ascribed to Giovanni in the same room, but it is greatly inferior in treatment.