Perugino

by Selwyn Brinton

Nothing that the master of Perugia has left us exceeds in tranquil beauty these central panels of the London National Gallery. Orsini tells us that from 1795 the Certosa painting with its six panels had passed into the possession of the ducal family of Melzi at Milan; but this is not quite correct, for we have seen that the panel of the Eternal Father is still in place. In 1856 Duke Melzi parted with his three panels to the London Gallery. In the centre panel the sweet, pensive Virgin is adoring the child Jesus, who is watched over by an angel, as in Leonardo's famous "Madonna of the Rocks," while three angels make music in the sky above; on the right of this is the Archangel Raphael with the young Tobias; on the left the lovely figure of the Archangel Michael, fully armed, with legs apart set firmly on the ground, and left hand resting on his shield—a figure which the master repeated more than once, notably in the great Assumption of the Virgin in the Florence Academy.

Perugino was married at this time to the beautiful Chiara Fancelli, and there is little doubt that she appears in more than one of his pictures; in particular, she is said to have posed for the Archangel Raphael of this Certosa altar-piece. Next to the beauty of type in this and other figures, we have to notice the pure rich colouring and the extraordinary beauty, in the central panel, of the landscape background. All the Umbrian sense of space is there, in this valley with its winding stream and blue distances, while in the middle distance the delicately drawn trees are mirrored against the clear sky. It is a picture one would love to live with, and, without possessing the rapt devotion, the deep inner spirit, which pervades the paintings of Angelico, its atmosphere is calm, restful, and in that sense prayerful.

A whole group of other paintings, attractive and interesting, though of lesser interest, belongs to this splendidly fertile period of Pietro's genius. The Fano altar-piece—a Virgin and Child with Saints—dates from a visit in 1497, and an Annunciation followed in the next year, while at Sinigaglia and Cantiano there are very similar works. Both the Fano pictures, which I have not seen, have been carefully described by Dr. Williamson in his monograph on this artist. The Madonna Crowned, with the Child on her knee and a group of kneeling penitents behind, now in the Perugian Gallery, was painted for the confraternity of San Pietro Martire in 1497; and there is in the same gallery a somewhat similar work, painted for another confraternity, with two saints (one of whom is St. Bernardino) kneeling in the foreground, and in the distance Perugia, with the yet untouched towers of the Baglioni.

To the same period have been attributed the Family of St. Anne, at Marseilles, and the Virgin in Glory, of the Bologna Gallery, with its armed St. Michael and its lovely female figure of St. Apollonia; and now we come to a creation which, in its fine drawing and composition and its atmosphere of tranquil beauty, takes a place beside the Certosa altar-piece or that of the Perugian Magistrates' Chapel. I refer to the Virgin appearing to St. Bernard, now in the Munich Gallery. The theme was a favourite one at this period of Italian art, for it has been treated with great beauty by Filippino Lippi in his painting in the Badia at Florence. The Munich picture was destined by our master for S. Spirito at Florence, and was acquired (in 1829) by King Ludwig of Bavaria from the Capponi family, who held the rights over the chapel where it hung. As in Filippino's rendering, the monastic saint is seated in study or adoration, and looks up, with a startled gesture, to see the Virgin enter with a train of lovely angels; but what Filippino fails to equal—even with his delicious angels, who might be taken from Florentine urchins—is the sense of tranquil beauty which comes to us in these figures of the Perugian master, and is continued in that wonderful sweep of distant landscape seen through the open colonnade. A study for this fine painting is among the drawings in the Uffizi Gallery.

PLATE VI.—FRANCESCO DELLE OPERE
(In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence)

[An interesting portrait, once thought a self-portrait of the master, but now considered to be of Francesco delle Opere. A powerful face, small dark eyes, a well-cut nose, and thick bull-neck. We see that Perugino was a fine portraitist of men, both in this and his genuine self-portrait (in the Sala del Cambio) and the two Vallombrosan monks in the Florence Academy. On the back of this picture is inscribed: 1494 D'Luglio Pietro Perugino Pinse Franco del Ope (i.e. delle Opere).]

I have already had occasion to mention the great Crucifixion of S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi (completed 1496), and a very similar treatment of this subject appears in a later Crucifixion painted for the Convent of S. Jerome in Florence, and now in the Accademia of that city. Here, in the three figures introduced, the Christ and the Virgin mother are almost reproduced from those in the larger fresco of S. Maria Maddalena, but are coarser and more careless in the painting. The city here in the distance has been traced to be Florence, and the date suggested is about 1498. Closer yet to this central date of the Perugian master's work is the great Vallombrosa "Assumption" (dated 1500); but this very probably succeeded immediately in order of time to the Sala del Cambio frescoes, and therefore I leave it for the moment to speak of the earlier, but most important, commission of the altar-piece of the Magistrates' Chapel at Perugia. A painting to decorate this chapel, and which was to include the portraits of the Priori, the governing body then in office, had been commissioned from Pietro as early as 1483, and the contract actually signed; but the master had more important work on hand—notably his frescoes for the chapel of Pope Sixtus—and it was not till twelve years later, in 1495, that, being again in Perugia and at the summit of his fame, he was successfully captured by the magistrates of that city, and signed a fresh contract on far higher terms (one hundred golden ducats, but with a time limit of six months for the work) to paint the altar-piece of their chapel. The result was the masterpiece which now hangs in the Vatican Gallery, and shows us the Virgin enthroned with the Child standing upright on her knee, beneath such an open portico as appears in the "Vision of St. Bernard," and with beside her four grave attendant saints, as robed and mitred bishops. Here the master varies a little his frequent signature—for Petrus de Chastro Plebis pinxit gives as his birthplace the little Umbrian city of Città della Pieve.

The great altar-piece, which possesses all the devotional beauty and repose of his best period, was this time completed within the time agreed, and took its honoured place within the Magistrates' Chapel at Perugia, whence it was torn away by the invading French in 1797, and found its way back, not to Perugia, but to the Vatican collection at Rome. Perugia, especially in the person of her greatest master, Pietro Vannucci, suffered terribly at the hands of Napoleon; and here I must express my appreciation of the able description given by my friend Dr. G. C. Williamson of what he very aptly calls "the story of the pillage."