Pietro Perugino

“ Giovanni Spagnuolo, called Lo Spagna, was another disciple of Pietro Perugino: this artist was a better colourist than any of the scholars left by Pietro at his death, and, after that event, would, without doubt, have established himself in Perugia, if the envy of the painters of that city, who were most unfriendly to foreign artists, had not persecuted him to such a degree that he was compelled to depart. He then retired to Spoleto, where his excellence and ability obtained for him a wife of good family, and he was, besides, made a citizen of Spoleto. ”

“ 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) .] ”

“ The picture is one of the most beautiful that Perugino ever painted. The composition is very clever, well balanced and well grouped, while the faces are of a serene beauty that was never surpassed in later works. It is well to notice that the dead body of Our Lord retains much of the flexibility of life, while quite as clearly is seen the weight and the looseness of death. The mourners around are full of tender pity, while the grief of the Virgin is too great for words, and evinces itself in the look of deep affection that fills that wonderful face. ”

“ Pietro Perugino certainly proved himself well acquainted with the management of colours,'in fresco as well as in oil, insomuch, that the most able artists are largely indebted to him for the knowledge to be obtained by means of his works, more especially as regards the lights.
In the church of Santa Croce, in the same city, this master painted a Madonna mourning over the body of Christ, which she sustains on her bosom; in this picture there are two figures, the sight of which awakens astonishment, not so much indeed for their excellence, as for their freshness ”

“ There is unity about the whole which is perfect. Perugino is at his best, straining his utmost to give honour to the town of his adoption, stimulated by the very nature of his commission, exercising all the fertility of his talent in design, and labouring with intense sympathy and determination, convinced that in Perugia he can execute a work that will perpetuate his name for ever and ever. ”

“ In the limited space before us it will not be possible to give anything but a skeleton sketch of the school of Perugino. Larger works contain abundant store of facts about this particular centre of Italian art; but if one only shuts one’s eyes and dreams of it, the three great names start up before one: Pietro Vannucci, Raphael, and Pinturicchio. Close upon these follow other names; some, and these perhaps the fairest and most charming, rise like the dawn behind them: Ottaviano Nelli, Bonfigli, and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. ”

“ The cloud which cuts across the mandorla in two places, the awkward, sentimental-looking faces of the disciples and women, the ill-drawn feet, and weak draperies, all reveal the hands of a pupil, yet the idea of the picture is distinctly Perugino's, and here and there are traces of firmer, stronger work, which may well be due to the master himself. ”

“ Perugia in 1796 was very rich in the works of her master, Pietro Perugino. "Almost every church possessed pictures by the master. The altar-piece painted in 1495 for the Magistrates' Chapel was still in situ, and public buildings were full of rich decoration." But Napoleon, a man whose life was steeped in battle and human bloodshed, seems by a strange contrast to have had a particular fancy for the quiet devotional art of the Umbrian master. ”

“ The landscape in both these works—in the Beckford Virgin blue hills and outlined trees, in the Fontignano fresco wide-sweeping uplands—is of great attraction.
"As the aged artist," says Crowe, "laboured at Fontignano, industrious to the close, a plague broke out in the Perugia district and ravaged the country. A disgraceful panic over-spread the land. It was decreed that the ceremonies of religion should be omitted in all cases where death ensued from the contagion. Perugino died and was buried in a field at Fontignano ... and no one knows where lie the bones of Pietro Perugino." ”

“ The name of Perugino came to him from Perugia, the chief city of the neighbourhood. P1etro was one of several children born to Cristoforo Vannucci, a member of a respectable family settled at Città della Pieve. Though respectable, they seem to have been poor, or else, for some reason or other, to have left P1etro uncared for at the opening of his career. Before he had completed his ninth year the boy was articled to a master, a painter at Perugia. Who this may have been is very uncertain; the painter is spoken of as wholly mediocre, but sympathetic for the great things in his art. ”

“ The world knows them and the capitals of Europe possess them, but from the city of Perugia, for which some of the very best were painted, they have been taken away by “quel stupendo ladro—Napoleone Bonaparte.” [88] Perugino’s fame spread like wildfire over the cities of Italy. “This maestro Pietro,” says a very old chronicler, “was distinguished (singolare) in his art throughout the universal world.” So intense was his fame and popularity, and his work in such demand, that it was impossible for him, for one single man, to supply all the work which men demanded of him. ”

“ In the works of this artist we are at once struck by the aloofness that distinguished Perugino. Single figures stand apart one from the other, each slightly connected as by a thread of thought, and similarly each with the central feature of the picture, but in every other way self-contained. Here again are the placid Umbrian landscapes with which later on we shall become so familiar, and the tall slender youths and sweet women full of tender grace, that make their first appearance in Umbrian art. ”

“ The envoy replied, giving to the Duke information as to the leading characteristics of each of the greater Florentine artists. Of Per [Pg 40] ugino he wrote: "He is a rare and singular artist, most excellent in wall painting. His faces have an air of the most angelic sweetness." The Duke Lorenzo at once decided to employ Perugino, and wrote to his friend Guido Arcimboldo, Archbishop of Milan, who was then in Venice, begging him to inquire about Perugino, and, if possible, engage him. The Archbishop replied on June 14th to say that Perugino had left Venice. ”

“ And he adds next: "Pietro was a person of very little religion, and could never be made to believe in the immortality of the soul; nay, with words adapted to his evil mind, he did most obstinately refuse every good path. He placed all his hopes in the goods of fortune, and for money would have made every bad contract." There were two reasons why Vasari should have been unfair to Perugino—one, that he was an Umbrian, even though long resident in Florence, the other, that he had come, as we have seen, into collision with his admired Michelangelo. ”

“ The benefits derived by some men of distinction from the poverty of tbeir youth, and how potent an assistant poverty sometimes proves in the cultivation of the faculties and for the attainment of excellence, may be clearly perceived in the history of Pietro Perugino. [1] This artist, seeking to escape from the extreme of penury in Perugia, departed to Florence, hoping, by means of his abilities, to attain to some distinction. ”

“ In the fresco at Rome, the two figures are crowded closely together; the arm of Our Lord almost rests on St. John's head, the face of the saint is weak [Pg 17] and feeble, the limbs are skinny and badly drawn, there is no sense of security in the feet, the hands are out of proportion and the draperies entirely lack the hook folds of Perugino, and are loose and inadequate. Above all, neither figure stands upon its two feet; in the case of the Christ one foot alone supports the whole body, a mistake that Perugino never makes. The whole picture is crowded with figures and hemmed in with hills. ”

“ In 1493 Perugino was balloted, so Orsini says, [Pg 31] into the municipal council at his native place, Città della Pieve, for May and June, and is said to have served his time there, but in the same year he was painting at Florence, and, according to Mariotti, had a botega in that city and accepted many commissions. To this period belong two notable pictures, one in Florence and the other in Vienna. The face of the Virgin in each picture is identical, and the infant Christ in each is painted from the same model. ”

“ There is abundance of dignity, stately [Pg 8] form, earnest but impassive determination, but, even in the battle scenes, nothing of the Sturm und Drang which would have been expected.
All these characteristics had direct influence upon Perugino, but even beyond them can be seen other marks of this master's tuition. The fantastic head-dresses that are to be seen in Piero's frescoes find their counterpart in the frescoes of the Cambio; the very same scheme of composition in "The Resurrection of Christ" in the Borgo San Sepolcro Gallery is to be seen in one of Perugino's pictures ”

“ The colour was so costly that in several of his contracts Perugino expressly stated that his patron was to provide it, and Vasari states that when he was painting in the cloister of the Ingesuati, the Prior, who himself prepared and supplied the ultramarine, was mean and mistrustful as to Perugino's use of it, and would always be present when it was used. The artist took the Prior's distrust to heart, and by constantly washing his brush in a bowl of water allowed more colour to be precipitated than he was using in his fresco. ”

“ They are more certainly interested one in the other, and in conversation one with the other; while as regards their draperies there is a broad, full sweeping treatment that is very marked, and deserves careful attention.
One more point may well be noted, that, fond as Perugino was of inscriptions and names on his pictures, of Latin verses, and of Latin signatures, in none of them is there such a profusion of inscriptions as in the Cambio, and every letter is most carefully drawn with the pencil, and is admirable in its proportions and clearness. ”

“ There is a very puzzling picture which was probably painted at about this time, and which was executed for San Francesco in Perugia and hangs now in the Vatican Gallery. Vasari ascribes it to Perugino. Orsini suggests that Raphael had a hand in it. Crowe gives it entirely to Raphael as a very early work, and Morelli ascribes it entirely to the hand of Lo Spagna. In the midst of so many conflicting theories it may be allowable for me to agree with Vasari. It is not very likely that in all his work Perugino would preserve [Pg 86] the same level of beauty. ”

“ Of Perugino's scholars who so closely followed their master, it will suffice just to mention Lo Spagna, Eusebio di San Giorgio, Giovanni Batta Caporali, Tiberio d'Assisi, Giannicola Manni, Rocco Zoppo, Baccio Ubertini, but the glory of Raphael has overshadowed them all.
It may be well finally to review briefly the characteristics of the artist, and of his work. Perugino appears to have been a man of great determination, Lupatelli says of iron will. He had known poverty in his early days, and had faced it. He was determined to push his way and make a living, and, if possible, a great name ”

“ The flattering request of his adopted townsmen was well pleasing to Perugino; the terms offered him were satisfactory; and early in 1499 he left Florence and commenced in Perugia what I consider to be the most important work of his life.
The scenes in the decoration of what is still called in Perugia the "Noble Cambio," are not the most beautiful that Pietro painted, nor are they the finest of his works in the way of drawing, composition, or colouring. ”

“ This being the case, how was it possible to find the corpse of one old man in order to lay it in consecrated ground? Pietro’s sons tried hard to find it. We read of them: of Giambatisto, Francesco and Michaelangelo, searching diligently but in vain for their father’s bones, that they might lay them in the Church of S. Agostino. [89]
Mariotti the chronicler of Perugino, whose loving and infinitely careful search has soothed, if it could not obliterate Vasari’s spiteful words, ends his notes on Perugino with the following quotation from a Latin poet:—
“Se pictus moreris, non moriturus obis.” ”

“ Other points of close resemblance are to be found in the drawing of the ears, which are totally different to those of Perugino's figures; in the hands, which are broad and heavy in the Caen picture and in Lo Spagna's usual work, but fine and delicate in Perugino's; and especially in the colouring, certain special tints such as a chartreuse-green and rose-salmon appearing in the Caen and Todi pictures, and never once to be found in Perugino's accepted work.
One very instructive set of arguments Mr. Berenson draws from a close examination of Raphael's "Sposalizio" at Milan. Its shape is upright. ”

“ Pietro, now aged forty, must have left Rome after the completion of the Sixtine paintings in 1486, and in the autumn of that year he was in Florence. Here he figures by no means advantageously in a criminal court. In July 1487 he and another Perugian painter named Aulista di Angelo were convicted, on their own confession, of having in December waylaid with staves some one (the name does not appear) in the street near S. Pietro Maggiore. Perugino limited himself, in intention, to assault and battery, but Aulista had made up his mind for murder. ”