Périgueux

“ It became later part of Aquitania secunda and formed the pagus petragoricus, alter wards the diocese of Périgueux. Since the 8th century it had its own counts (see the Histoire généalogique of P. Anselme, tome iii) , who were feudatories of the dukes of Aquitaine and in the 13th century were the vassals of the king of England. ”

“ Peregrine, God has bestowed on her a mind capable of great things—a wonderful voice. Place her in my charge for two years—I am solitary and very rich—she shall see the world and its wonders; I will have her educated, bestow on her all the refinements that great wealth can command. Nature has given her a glorious voice, Art shall make her a great singer. Forego your present happiness for her future good and your gipsy maid shall become a great lady and a peerless woman. Do this, Peregrine, and here, truly, shall be love indeed. ”

“ Early the following morning we turned our faces northward on Perugia, but took a last long look at Perugino’s altar-piece in the church of the Disciplinati. Faint golds, faint greens, a quiet landscape, with low hills falling peacefully on a low stretch of valley. No harsh shadows, no high lights, the shepherds crossing down the paths behind their browsing sheep. The Virgin, a type of purest girlhood with just enough of the woman in the way she holds the Child to show it is her own; young men, for kings, with angel faces, and the smile of saints ”

“ The inhabitants of Perugia, in every class, are unmistakably gentle and amiable, both in mind and manner. They are courteous to strangers, kind, helpful and calm. Even the street boys ask one for stamps instead of pennies. In their leisure they are gay, and in their work persistent. They are never frantic or demonstrative. As one sits at one’s window on warm spring nights, one almost wishes the people in the street would either fight or sing, but they do neither. They take their pleasures calmly, and hang upon their town walls by the hour, gazing out upon a view they love. ”

“ For nineteen happy years I have devoted myself to caring for my nephew Peregrine, body and mind. My every thought has been of him or for him, my love has been his shield against discomforts, bodily ailments and ills of the mind—
MY UNCLE JERVAS. And precisely there, Julia, lies his happy misfortune. You have thought for him so effectively he has had small scope to think for himself; cared for him so sedulously that he shall hardly know how to take care of himself; sheltered him so rigorously that, once removed from the sphere of your strong personality, he would be pitifully lost and helpless. ”

“ Peregrine looked up and saw close before him the old woman, whom his father had taken into his service chiefly because she could get no other place, on account of her outrageous ugliness: she had been Peregrine's nurse in his early childhood, and had not left the house since. For a long time he stared at the woman, and at last began with a strange smile, "Is it you, Alina? The old people live still, do they not?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ As early as 12th October 1690, Jacques Perigal married Esther Le Marcis, in the French Church in the Savoy. Francois Perigal was married in the French Church of Castle Street, Leicester Square, in 1726. We can trace three generations in the Directorate of the French Hospital — John, 24th July 1718, Francis, 12th July 1769, John, 14th July 1784. Perhaps we may claim as a son or grandson of John, Mr. Arthur Perigal, an artist, who was a pupil of Fuseli in the Royal Academy. He removed to Edinburgh, and became a portrait and landscape painter there, and also a teacher of drawing. ”

“ The Ancient Person laid gentle hand upon her glossy hair. "Wait, dear child, and Love, I think, shall open to you a nobler living, shall give you pinions to soar awhile—"
"How—what d'ye mean, old pal?"
"Nay, ask Peregrine," answered his lordship, shaking his head. "Only very sure am I that love which is true and everlasting is infinitely unselfish."
And presently we took our leave, the Earl attending to see us into the phaeton and bid us adieu; and all the way back I must needs ponder his definition of love and wonder exactly what he had meant. ”

“ The earliest Origins of Perugia and growth of the City SOMETIMES in a street or in a country road we meet an unknown person who seems to us wonderfully and inexplicably attractive. Perhaps we only catch a passing vision; the face, the figure passes us, oftener than not we never meet again, and even the memory of the vision which seemed so full of life, so strong, and so enduring, passes with the years, and we forget. ”

“ SIENA: BANNER-HOLDER.
We left at dawn, in the clear pale light which floods the Umbrian plain when the world is yet a little grey, and Perugia is nothing but a lovely outline on the crest of her hill. This is the light that [62] Perugino loved, the shadowless herald of the day, full of the mystery of the morning. The world woke slowly from her pale slumber in the arms of night; the sky deepened from beryl to gold. We found Thrasymene illumined with rosy morning fires, her hills empurpled, and the towers of her little cities aflame with sunrise. ”

“ The Cambio, Perugia
PORTRAIT OF PERUGINO, 1500
There are no angels in this picture, which, for Perugino, is most unusual; but Moses and Elias, fine, well-drawn, powerful figures, take the place of the usual singing angels who float in the sky. The half-startled look of the disciples is very cleverly presented, and the glow of the ethereal light upon their faces, partially warded off by St. John with his upraised hand, is beautifully depicted.
The transfigured Christ is an imposing figure, full of dignity and peace, and demanding reverence from those around. ”

“ But the spirit of the age was at work in them as in so many other families in the dale villages. Peregrine's six sons had long since left him alone in his steading on the moors: some had gone down to the manufacturing towns of the West Riding and had prospered in trade; others had fought, and more than one had fallen, in the Napoleonic wars. Peregrine, therefore, although seventy-six years of age and a widower, had no one to share roof and board with him in his shepherd's cottage a thousand feet above the sea. ”

“ Here, in the best part of the town, Perugino had his house and his workshop. In the house, full of precious stuffs and fine linen and plate and everything which a wealthy burgher could desire, lived the handsome wife of the master, for whom he was for ever designing and ordering new clothes, and whose beautiful hair he loved himself to dress in strange fantastic diadems and helmets of minute plaits and waves and curls, that she might go through the town as magnificent and quaintly attired as any noble lady of the Baglionis or Antinoris or Della Staffas. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is a feeling of crush and crowd such as Perugino never gives, and a total absence even in the landscape of that extensive vista of scenery, that breadth of treatment which is so important. Even the representation of the Eternal Father within the mandorla of cherubs and attended by angels is not placed high up in the illimitable aerial space, but almost touches a neighbouring hill, and serves but to overfill the picture and make its crowded composition a wearisome burden. ”

“ No pain comes near the folk of his celestial city; no longing poisons their repose; they are not weary, and the wicked trouble them no more. Their cheerfulness is no less perfect than their serenity; like the shades of Hellas, they have drunk Lethæan waters from the river of content, and all remembrance of things sad or harsh has vanished from their minds.... In the best work of Perugino, the Renaissance set the seal of absolute perfection upon pietistic art. ”

“ Of course, were she free of this incubus Peregrine, free to live for her own happiness instead of his, I should have her wedded and wifed while you were thinking about it."
"Aye," sighed my uncle George, "you were always such an infernal dasher—"
"As it is, the boy will grow into a priggish, self-satisfied do-nothing, and she into an adoring, solitary old woman—"
"Julia! An old woman! Good God! Hush, Jervas—it sounds dooced indecent!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Vereker, should you protract your stay in these parts, I shall hope to repeat the pleasure of this afternoon and hear more of your musical concepts. Good-bye t' ye, George!"
And limping to a light carriage that stood adjacent, the slender, shabby figure climbed in with the aid of the assiduous Atkinson, and drove away.
"Well, upon my soul, Peregrine," exclaimed my uncle, removing his hat to ruffle his brown curls, "a precious pickle you look, b'gad! Where in the world—what under heaven—your breeches, Perry—that unspeakable—if only Julia could see you now. Oh, the dooce!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have occasionally thought to remark in you a hint of unplumbed deeps—of passions as hot and fierce as—"
"Your own, Uncle Jervas?" At this he turned to glare at me rather haughtily, then his eyes softened, his lips twitched.
"So women do not appeal to you, Peregrine. Pray why?"
"Because woman appeals to me so much—one, sir!" ”

“ Only to look at their faces one knows that their litany is absolutely out of tune. At the head of the Saint another priest is reading in a book, his acolytes swing incense, one holds the Bishop’s staff. The rest of the church is filled with quiet groups of men and women; and the most charming figure of the whole is that of a young man in a red gown with a shock of yellow curls, who kneels, lost in prayer, at the knees of the dead Saint, his back turned to us.
The next picture represents the siege of Perugia by Totila. ”

“ Lads pertain only to your world! Peregrine never was, will, or could be such a thing!"
"Good God!" exclaimed my uncle George feebly, and groped for his short, crisp-curling whisker with fumbling fingers.
"Peregrine never was, will, or could be such a thing!" repeated my aunt in a tone of finality.
"Then what the dev—"
"George!"
"I should say then—pray, Julia, what the—hum—ha—is he?"
"Being my nephew, he is a young gentleman, of course!"
"Ha!" quoth my uncle George.
"Hum!" sighed my uncle Jervas. "A gentleman is usually a better man for having been a lad! ”

“ The child’s figure is like a little S. John, but he is probably meant to represent the Spirit of the Merchants’ Guild, for he has a bundle bound about his shoulders, over which his yellow curls fall down, and a bundle or “pacco” is the sign of the Merchants’ Guild.
The stalls in the chapel are very fine work of the sixteenth century. A whole book might easily be written about the stalls of the Perugian churches. Their wealth of beauty and of real excellency is inexhaustible, but it would be hopeless in so short a space to attempt any full description of the individual ones. ”

“ But from the Age of Darkness men awoke both in their manners and in their buildings. Perugia of the Middle Ages shook the sleep from off her heavy eyelids, and with that passionate impulse towards Light which was perhaps the secret of the Renaissance, she too strove toward the Beautiful, and in a hurried, fevered fashion, she too decked herself with fairer things than castle towers and hovels. ”

“ But it is not only in the marvellous and peaceful beauty of her setting that Perugia is a paradox, for how is it possible to reconcile the pictures of Perugino and his great pupils—Raphael, Lo Spagna, Pinturicchio, and Eusebio di San Giorgio—with the awful deeds of the Oddi and the Baglioni ”

“ Sitting on the steps of the Duomo we seem to feel it creep up round our feet telling us stories of a past which is immortal. It was here that the people of Perugia fought and judged, preached and repented, loved maybe, and most certainly hated. It was in this little pulpit above our heads that S. Bernardino preached, and saw the books of necromancy and the false hair of the ladies burned; here that the Podestà and the people received ambassadors with deeds of submission from terrified neighbour towns. ”