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ERCOLANO.
The church of S. Ercolano is built straight
against a part of the first
Etruscan walls on the spot where the saint is
supposed to have been
decapitated by Totila. It is a strange little church,
octagonal and very
tall and narrow. The first church is said to have been
built as early as
1200 and out of the remains of an old amphitheatre, or, as
some say, the
temple to Mars, which originally stood on the site. Its early
history
is, however, somewhat hazy. In 1600 the church was finally rebuilt
by
Bishop Comitoli, who at once looked about him for some suitable tomb
in
which to place the body of S. Ercolano, which had hitherto had such
a
very unquiet history. It happened that just at that time a
splendid
sarcophagus was dug up under the little chapel of S. Orfito at the
foot
of Monte Pacciano. Six skulls and a wooden cross, together with
certain
legends connected with some early Christian martyrs and a chapel in
the
woods, seemed to prove that the sarcophagus had formerly held
their
"holy bones." The pious bishop Comitoli very reasonably concluded
that
"Heaven was ministering to his need," so he took the sarcophagus and
put
it on the altar of his new church, and in it he laid the body of
the
saint. The translation of the body from its old abode in the Duomo
was
marked by a magnificent ceremony. The Bishop got up into the pulpit
in
the square, which had never been used since the days of S.
Bernardino,
and thence preached a sermon on the merits of their patron Saint
to the
people of Perugia, who came in thousands to attend him.
S.
Ercolano, who is purely a local saint like S. Costanzo, plays an
important
part in the history of Perugia; he may, indeed, be called the
presiding
genius of the city. His history is often confused with that of
a most obscure
and highly mythical person
[Illustration: CHURCH OF S. ERCOLANO AND
ARCHWAY IN THE ETRUSCAN WALL]
of the same name who was martyred at
Perugia in very early days and
devoured by wild beasts in the amphitheatre.
The shining point in the
life of the second S. Ercolano is the part that he
played in the defence
of his city during the siege of Totila. This has
endeared him to the
hearts of the citizens, and his name is as familiar to
the street boys
of Perugia as that of S. Ubaldo to the children of Gubbio.
Unlike the
saint of Gubbio, however, S. Ercolano failed in his
diplomacy.
Barbarossa listened to the prayers of Ubaldo and departed from
Gubbio;
Totila took Perugia and beheaded its Bishop, and the Gothic soldiers
cut
off his head on a ledge of the Etruscan walls where the present
church
now stands to commemorate his martyrdom.
All sorts of strange
ceremonies and religious festivities grew up round
the worship of this
beloved saint, for the Perugians were as religious
as they were warlike, and
they delighted in pious displays. Indeed, one
old proverb describes the
_credo_ of the city as consisting of three
P's: _Processione_,
_Persecuzione_, _Protezione_. There were countless
rules and regulations
concerning the processions of the various saints.
Some had a double
procession, or one which extended itself over two
days. On the first of
these, the procession started from the house of
the Saint and proceeded to
the Duomo, and on the second the order was
reversed. In the case of S.
Ercolano his statue was carried on the first
day from his house with a wooden
head upon its shoulders. On the second
day it returned to its abode with a
silver head in commemoration of his
martyrdom. So when anybody in Perugia
lied or was deceitful, he was
described as having two faces like the blessed
Ercolano!
In Monaci's collection of the Uffizi Dramatici dei Disciplinati
dell'
Umbria we find many of the great tragic songs or plays sung by
the
Flagellants of Perugia, and some of the finest of these are
addressed
to S. Ercolano, who, as we have said, exercised a peculiar
influence
over the minds and consciences of the Perugians. The outside world
made
great sport of this almost infantine side to the character of
the
Perugians, and on one occasion the Florentine painter, Buffalmacco,
made
use of it in combination with their other worship, namely, their love
of
fishes, to play a rather hazardous practical joke upon them.
Vasari
recounts the history at length:--
"Now the Perugians," he
says, "gave Buffalmacco an order to paint
in the Piazza of S. Ercolano a
portrait of that saint, who is the
patron and was the bishop of their
city. The price being arranged,
a scaffolding of wood covered with
matting was put up for him in
order that none might watch him at his
painting; and this being
done he set to work upon it. But ten days had
not passed by before
everyone who happened to walk that way began to ask
when the
picture would be finished, as though such things as this could
be
cast in a mould, and at last the thing became a nuisance to
Buffalmacco. Therefore, having finished his work and being wearied
of so
much importunity, he decided within himself to be quietly
avenged on the
impatience of these people, and he succeeded; for
the work being
finished, he showed it to them before uncovering it,
and they expressed
themselves absolutely satisfied. But when the
Perugians expressed their
desire at once to pull down the
scaffolding, Buffalmacco told them to
let it stand for another two
days because he desired it to retouch
certain points for his own
satisfaction, and thus it was settled. Then
Buffalmacco went back
to that spot where round the head of his saint he
had painted a
large golden aureole, and as was the custom in those
times, with a
high relief of plaster he made him a crown, or more
properly
speaking, a garland, and wound it round and round his head, and
all
of _lasche_. And this being done he one day paid his landlord
and
returned to Florence. Then as the days passed by, and the
Perugians
failed to see the painter moving about as was his custom,
they
asked the landlord what might have become of him, and hearing
that
he had returned to Florence, they immediately hurried to
uncover
the picture, and finding their saint crowned only with a wreath
of
fishes, they immediately carried the news to the governor of
their
city and then, with hottest haste, sent horsemen in pursuit
of
Buffalmacco; but in vain, for he had returned to Florence with
the
best speed he might. Therefore they decided to have the crown
of
fishes removed from the head of the saint and the aureole
replaced
by one of their own painters, and in future to speak as much
evil
as they could, both of Buffalmacco himself and of the
Florentines
in general."[66]
The story of Buffalmacco, the saint,
and the crown of fishes is comic
enough, but the square in which the scene
described above was acted
witnessed the deepest human tragedy that the annals
of Perugia have
preserved for us. It was just outside the church of S.
Ercolano that
Grifonetto Baglioni got his death-wound. Driven back from Porta
S.
Pietro with only a few men, he prepared to keep the gate of
"Sancto
Ercolano" and there, hopeless of anything save death, he awaited
the
assault of Gianpaolo. It was here in this place that he fell.
Did
Raphael come down the street along with the other terror-stricken
people
after the fight was over? Did he, with the quiet eyes of the
artist,
look on this passionate scene of love and death? Was it Grifonetto
that
he painted later in his picture--"Grifonetto gracious in his person."
We
cannot tell; we only know as a fact that the "Entombment," now in
the
Borghese villa at Rome, was ordered by Atalanta Baglioni, and in
a
letter from Raphael concerning it we see that he was acquainted with
her
personally. It has been suggested to us by a Perugian who is wise in
art
and history, that Raphael painted a portrait of Grifonetto not in
the
figure of Christ as one might naturally suppose, but in the
more
prominent figure of the vigorous young man who supports the feet of
the
dead Saviour. The whole attitude of this figure is one of
dauntless
energy and courage such as one would expect to see in the son of
two
such cousins as Atalanta and Grifone Baglioni.
*
* * * *
From the steps of S. Ercolano one of the only
broad and comparatively
even streets of the town--the Corso Cavour--leads to
the main road
through the Porta Romana, down the steep hill to the Tiber and
across
the plain to join the road to Rome. Most of the history of Perugia
has
come and gone along this road; it was here that the popes made
their
triumphal entries, here probably that the barbarians forced a
passage,
and here, even in our own days, that Perugia suffered a final and
a
painful siege from Rome. It was on the of 20th of June 1859 that
the
Swiss guard fought its way along it, burning down the houses and
beating
back as they advanced the ill-organised body of inhabitants.
Strange
thrilling details of that day have been told to us by people who
were
present. One inhabitant, a mere boy then, was up with his parents at
the
top of their house in the Corso Cavour, but smelling smoke in the
shop
below they crept downstairs to see what might be happening, and
found
the Pope's guard foraging amongst their medicine bottles. The mother
and
boy fled back up the stairs, but the father was caught and carried
out
into the street to be shot. Then the small boy leaned from the
window,
covering his face with a scarf, and pleaded so passionately for
his
father's life that the Swiss soldiers spared him and passed to
more
profitable pursuits further up in the town. (We hear that they
were
filled with so great a lust for blood that they even wrung the neck of
a
tame falcon in the Piazza Sopramuro!) Another gentleman who had come
in
with the Pope's guard gave us some details of the siege, and
amongst
them he told us of a certain priest at S. Pietro, who, thinking to
kill
the leader of the troops, shot at the drum-major, whose
magnificent
appearance would no doubt make him remarkable to a quiet monk.
The
unfortunate priest was shot for his pains up in the square on
the
following morning.[67]
The Corso Cavour has a very modern look
about it. Most of its big
buildings are used as barracks, but some few of the
old are left. The
Palazzo Bracceschi has a fine old outside staircase and a
good
collection of pictures, amongst them an exquisite Madonna and
child
attributed to Filippo Lippi, but more like a Neri di Bicci, also
some
fine original drawings.
S. DOMENICO.
The gigantic
church of S. Domenico towers above the street to the left.
It is one of those
desolate unfinished Gothic buildings which one finds
so often in Italian
cities--a great idea dwarfed, not by want of
inspiration, but by the need of
money to complete it. The church as we
now see it is merely a patchwork of
the first architect's original
conception. It was begun early in the
fourteenth century from designs
by Giovanni Pisano, but it was not finished
till 1459. The building owed
much of its splendour to a young man of Perugia,
Cristiano Armanni, who,
whilst studying at Bologna, had been converted to the
faith by the
preaching of S. Domenico. Cristiano returned from the university
in the
society of a certain S. Niccolo of Calabria, and induced his parents
and
his friends to give him money for the new church which was about to
be
built to honour S. Domenico. The magistrates of Perugia contributed
a
banner to the cause, and they decided that wherever S. Niccolo
might
place this banner, there the new church should be built. He planted
it
near the church of S. Stefano, and on that site the present church of
S.
Domenico now stands. Through the fault of inferior masons, part of
the
choir and the middle nave fell through in 1614, but Bishop
Comitoli
determined to rebuild it on the original design. He spent more than
4000
_scudi_ on this generous act and was as ill-rewarded as the most
patient
builder of card-castles ever was, for the whole of his work
collapsed
for the second time. It was finally rebuilt on the designs of
Carlo
Maderno, in 1632. But all this tinkering has left very sorry scars,
and
even the tower outside has not been spared. It was begun later than
the
rest of the church and was not finished till about the end of
the
fourteenth century, when Paul III. at once had the top of it knocked
off
because he declared that the monks of S. Domenico could, from
their
campanile, look down and spy upon the building of his
fortress!
One or two relics alone remain of the many beautiful bits of
art with
which the church was rich in early days. Of these the tomb of
Pope
Benedict XI. is the most fascinating.
Of the life of Benedict
there is not much to say; his reign covered a
period of only eight months,
and perhaps his greatest glory is in his
tomb. He was a native of Treviso and
belonged to the Dominican order. In
1304 he, like other popes and tired
people, came to Perugia in search of
the peace he could not find in Rome, and
there, in that same year, he
died. When in Perugia his mother came to see
him--a thing which had only
once happened to a pope before.
"Moved by a desire to see her son," says Mariotti, "Filomarina came
to
Perugia, and here having had herself nobly dressed by the people
of
Perugia, as befitted the mother of the Pope, she presented
herself to
her son. But he, seeing her so beautifully clad,
pretended that he did
not know her, saying that this was not his
mother, because _she_ was a
poor old woman and not a lady like this
one. And his mother hearing this
thing, and being a good and holy
woman, took off those rich adornments,
and putting on her own
again, she returned to the Pope, who recognising
her as his mother,
received her with all tenderness."
Pope
Benedict was anxious to make peace between the Bianchi and Neri of
Florence,
and received from some of the heads of the Guelph factions a
visit of state
in his residence at Perugia. Twelve of them, headed by
Corso Donato, came
with all their suite behind them: one hundred and
fifty horses we hear, and
many friends and relatives. No satisfactory
agreement was arranged, and
shortly afterwards this holy but powerless
Pope passed into his
rest.
It was supposed that Benedict died of poison, and the older stories
run,
like the modern one of Zola, on the subject of a basket of
poisoned
figs.
"In the year of Christ 1304, on the 27th of the
month of June,"
says Villani, "Pope Benedict died in the city of
Perugia, and it
was said that he died of poison. As the Pope sat eating
at his
table a young man came to him dressed and veiled in the guise of
a
woman, and as a servant of S. Petronilla, with a basin of silver
in
which were many beautiful figs and flowers which he presented
to
the Pope in the name of the faithful Abbess of the convent.
The
Pope received the figs with very great delight, and because
he
loved them, he made no enquiry concerning them, seeing
moreover
that they came from a woman, and he ate a great quantity,
whereupon
he immediately fell ill, and after a few days he died, and
was
buried with great honours by the Preaching Friars who belonged
to
the Dominican order at Perugia. Benedict was a good and an
honest
man, but it is said that because of the envy of certain of
his
cardinals, they had him poisoned in this
fashion."
[Illustration: DETAIL OF THE TOMB OF POPE BENEDICT XI. IN THE
CHURCH OF
S. DOMENICO]
Some say that Benedict was poisoned because of
the ill-feeling of the
Florentines towards him, and others that he died by
the jealous hand of
Philippe le Bel of France. The historians of the present
day deny the
fact of poison at all. Be these matters as they may, the fact of
the
dead pope's tomb remains--an entrancing bit of human workmanship. It
was
made by Giovanni Pisano, son of the great Niccola, "who first
breathed
life, with the breath of genius, into the dead forms of plastic
art."
Pope Benedict lies asleep; stretched out quite flat and thin in
his
exquisitely folded robes; there is a canopy over him with
curtains
strung across it and two angels have drawn the curtain back to gaze
at
the figure of the dead man. The columns of the tomb were filled up
once
with precious mosaics, but during Napoleon's occupation of Perugia,
a
regiment of men and horse were quartered in the church of S.
Domenico,
and the French soldiers are said to have employed their leisure
hours in
picking out these treasures with their pen-knives. Perhaps it was
these
same thoughtless beings who wilfully mutilated the exquisite figures
of
children, fragments of which are still left clinging to the
spiral
curves.
The terra-cotta decorations in the chapel of the
Rosario are the work of
Agostino Ducci--the Florentine sculptor who made the
lovely front of S.
Bernardino, (see chapter viii.), and they would be
interesting if only
for that reason. Though mutilated in parts, and spoilt by
careless
white-wash, much of the detail is still charming; notably the
three
little angels over the central arch. As for the rest of the church
it
has but little interest now-a-days. The immense Gothic window of
the
choir is said to be the largest in Italy, but the original glass
is
entirely gone from its frame. The whole has been carefully restored
by
Signor Moretti of Perugia. The stalls are covered with good
intarsia
work, but they have been greatly spoiled by careless restoration,
and
have a naked and forsaken look about them. S. Domenico is one of
those
pathetic buildings which leave upon one's mind the feeling of
arrested
decay, and one hurries gladly from it and out into the sunlight of
the
street.
S. PIETRO.
Very different in every way is the
church of S. Pietro, which one
reaches after passing through the gate of
Porta Romana. "The Basilica of
S. Pietro is so adorned with beauties," says
its faithful, but perhaps
too fond, biographer, "that it would suffer and be
overburdened were
others added to it." The praise is certainly high, but it
has a certain
grain of truth, and the church of S. Pietro, is, amongst the
churches of
Perugia, a jewel of inestimable price, for unlike all the others
it has
been left with all its treasures and its pictures in it (see note,
p.
163).
The church and monastery of S. Pietro are built on the hill
of Capraio
or Calvary, which stretches away to the south of the town. They
form the
first object which catches the eye as one approaches the city on
the
line from Rome; they serve as a sure landmark from many distant
points
of Umbria, and one cannot stay long in the city without
becoming
sincerely attached to the beautiful group of pale brick
buildings,
crowned by their graceful campanile, which catch the sunrise and
the
sunset lights, and fascinate one's fancy at every time and
season.
It is difficult to decide the date of the first church of S.
Pietro.
Tradition says that it is built on the site of an old Etruscan
temple,
and that it was the first Christian building of Perugia, certainly
it
was the first cathedral. We hear that the earliest Christians of
Perugia
used to meet in subterranean passages under the present church of
S.
Costanzo, which stands on the same spur of hill as that of S.
Pietro,
and that there S. Costanzo, the second Bishop of Perugia, gathered
his
little flock together to "feed them with the milk of the holy word
of
God." We know that the present basilica was built by a certain
Abbot,
Pietro Vincioli, a monk of the Benedictine order, who lived in the
tenth
century, and was a great friend of the Emperor Otto III. Bonazzi gives
a
delightful description of this Abbot and of his method of building
and
the miracles he employed for the purpose. It seems that Pietro
was
famous for his great sanctity and learning, and that he lived at a
time
when everybody imagined that the world was about to come to an
end:
"He had rich friends, the Emperor among them, and the latter,
who
entertained the general superstition about the end of the
world,
gave him a great deal of money, with which the Abbot determined
to
build for himself the present church of S. Pietro. The Pope,
the
Emperor, and many other persons showered down donations and
privileges for the purpose, and the new Benedictine monastery soon
became celebrated, and its monks took an active and important part
in
the affairs of Perugia.... Although S. Pietro was of a somewhat
surly
temper," continues Bonazzi, "he had the gift of miracles, and
once when
the Tiber was in heavy flood, and a mill belonging to the
convent was
threatened with destruction, the saint caused the
waters to subside. On
another occasion during the building of S.
Pietro, the ropes which were
raising one of the columns snapped in
two, and the Saint caused the
column to remain suspended in mid air
until new ropes were brought, so
that nobody was hurt. This
particular column is the second on the left
as you enter.... It is
impossible to imagine," Bonazzi continues, "how
great was the
sensation caused by these miracles, and for the time
being, nobody
thought any more about the end of the world--perhaps they
hoped
that our Saint had exorcised that, as well as the lesser
catastrophes."
Just as the Abbot had built his church in 963--a beautiful
bare
basilica, with colonnades, and naked raftered roof--so she remained
till
well down into the fifteenth century, waiting, as it were, for
the
raiment of the Renaissance to clothe her with fresh glories.
Then
gradually, first by the roofing of the ceiling, then by
pictures,
chapels, the enlargement of the sacristy and choir, and such things
of
rare and exquisite beauty as the stalls and the altar-piece of
Perugino,
S. Pietro grew into a thing of marvellous taste and finish. But it
was
an evil day in which some person ruined the original facade by
adding
the courtyard and the cloisters. In old times the campanile stood
free
of the church, and the front of the church had strange figures
and
frescoes on it, parts of which can still be seen by penetrating a
dark
passage under the bell-tower at the back of the little sacristy.
(See
Bonfigli's fresco, p. 243.)
The history of the campanile of S.
Pietro is a study in itself. This
most lovely and unfortunate tower was for
ever suffering at the hands of
man or else the elements. Its chronicler is
unable to discover the date
of its first erection, but he tells us that it
was probably built on the
site of an old Etruscan tomb, which even now forms
its basement. The
earliest written record of the campanile is dated 1347, at
which time we
are told that it was so elegant, and so very richly adorned,
that an
early historian thought it to be the "loveliest in Tuscany," yet
a
certain war-like Abbot, Fra Guidalotti, a man "who rather inclined
to
the affairs of war than the discipline of religion, with a view maybe
to
convert his campanile into a fortress, that it might thus better
serve
his war-like spirit," began to claw it down. He got as far as the
first
obelisk, and in his evil operations he tumbled down the metal statue
of
the Saint which once adorned the summit. The engaging work of the
Abbot
was taken up and continued by Pope Boniface IX., who, in 1393, spent
180
florins in turning the gracious tower into a strong fortress! In
1468
the campanile was rebuilt by the monks at the great cost of
4000
florins, but some years later it was struck by lightning and
much
injured. "From this point onward," writes its historian, "the history
of
the tower can only be traced through one continuous series of
repairs,
which injury from lightning necessitated." These injuries were of
such a
sort and so continuous that finally the building showed signs
of
approaching ruin. Iron clamps were added, but the lightning
continued
to attack it. At last someone had the wisdom to put up
lightning
conductors, since when the tower is safe, and one of the
loveliest
points in the landscape is secured for us.
A door festooned
with splendid garlands of fruit, carved deep in creamy
marbles, leads from
the courtyard into the church. The interior is
heavily decorated, but though
some of the pictures are far from good,
the impression given by the whole is
beautiful and pleasing; and the
choir, which was added in 1400, is one of the
loveliest things of its
kind in Italy. The columns of the nave are some of
the remains of the
only pagan temple which was left in Perugia after the
siege of Augustus
(see S. Angelo, chapter vii.). With the exception of
Perugino's great
altar-piece, S. Pietro has preserved nearly all the pictures
which were
painted for it. Amongst these is a good _Pieta_ by Perugino
(perhaps one
of the panels out of the big picture at S. Agostino). There are
three
large canvases by Vasari in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament, a
painting
by Eusebio di S. Giorgio of the Adoration of the Magi on the
wall
outside and a picture by Guido Reni in the chapel of
the
Annunciation.[68] At the end of the left transept is a _Pieta_
by
Bonfigli. "Cette Piete incorrecte et pieuse," as M. Broussole
describes
it. The picture hangs in a bad light between the Vibi chapel and
the
door, and at first only the white naked figure of Christ shines out
on
the dark blue gown of the virgin; but looking a little longer we
find
ourselves in the study of S. Jerome: one of those enchanting rooms
which
this particular saint inevitably inhabits, neat and exquisite in
the
arrangement of its benches and its lectern. Our Lady of Pity is
sitting
there, holding the dead figure of her son and kissing his head upon
her
shoulder. To her right is a figure of S. Leonard, to the left,
and
wholly unconscious of the tragedy, S. Jerome sits, smiling a
little
slyly. There is beautiful intarsia work (older than that in the
choir)
on the walls of the sacristy, and some fine illuminated books;
lower
down the church in the right transept, a beautiful bit of work
by
Salimbene of Siena, and on the last wall a fine picture of the school
of
Perugino, very rich and bright in colour. The two Alfanis have
left
ample specimens of their art in S. Pietro, and there are several
of
Sassoferrato's copies of great masterpieces. But the greatest
treasure
of the church, like those of S. Lorenzo and S. Agostino, did not
escape
the terrible eye of Napoleon Bonaparte. Perugino's great
Assumption,
which formed the glory of the high altar, is gone to France. Only
six of
the saints, battered and cut from their frames, linger like
unhappy
ghosts on the walls of the sacristy.
The altar in the chapel
of the Vibi and Baglioni families is a lovely
bit of Mino da Fiesole's work.
Vasari accuses this sweet-souled sculptor
of a lack of originality--of a
desire to copy the sentiment of his
master (Desiderio da Settignano) rather
than to draw straight for
himself from the sources of nature. Be this as it
may in the case of
Mino's portraits of people, those of his flowers in this
particular
piece of work are strangely realistic. We think he must himself
have
gathered and bound the garlands which hang from the narrow frieze,
and
in doing so he took for models the sharpest and the prickliest
fruits
and leaves of autumn: hazel nuts and tiny fir cones, their points
just
tipped with gold. The halos, too, on the angels' heads, their wings,
and
the details of the architecture are all picked out with gold.
White,
clean, and flat and fair is Mino's altar-piece in the Baglioni
chapel.
How different from the blood-stained hands and hearts of those same
men
who came to tell their beads here and be buried.
Long after other
details in the church have been forgotten, its choir
will remain a haunting
vision of excessive beauty. Every inch of it is
worked with exquisite care
and finish, for the monks spared no pains or
money, either in its
construction or its decoration. Although a piece of
the purest Renaissance
fancy, it does not clash with the lines of the
older basilica, and the two
little pulpits of pietra serena, with their
rich gilding, the organ lofts and
the rather rococo frescoes on the
ceiling, seem only to harmonise the meeting
of the different styles of
building. Raphael is said to have designed the
stalls, but there is no
sort of document to prove this. "Because our choir is
the work of a
genius, it does not follow that that genius should be Raphael
... genius
is not the possession of one sole person," pleads M. Cassinese.
Raphael
died in 1520, the present stalls were not finished till 1535, and
they
are probably almost entirely the work of Stefano da Bergamo and the
men
and boys whom the Bergamasque employed. Some few may be of an
earlier
date, for we know that the choir was begun in 1524, and that the
work
was interrupted by the same terrible pestilence as that which
killed
Perugino. In 1532, Stefano da Bergamo undertook the work of the
choir.
He worked steadily, and the monks of S. Pietro kept the most
accurate
account of what they paid him, and of how many measures of flour
and
pence they gave the men and boys whom he employed. Little is known
of
the life of Stefano da Bergamo; we do not even know from whom he
learned
his art, but M. Cassinese rightly concludes that he drew his
inspiration
from the divine Raphael, since his designs are purely
Raphaelesque. The
carving is unequal, and some of the stalls are infinitely
lovelier than
others. Note the ninth on the right of the choir: a mother and
three
children encircled by a heavy garland of fruit and flowers, and
under
them a child, with flying hair, playing with snakes. Note, too,
the
extraordinary rows of mythical beasts which lie upon the arms of
the
lower row of stalls; catch them in perspective one evening in
the
dusk--they will give you food for most fantastic dreaming. What
minds,
half childlike and half mad, these early carvers had!
The doors
of the choir are the work of Fra Damiano of Bergamo. They are
intarsia work,
and show a most delightful fancy. They have unfortunately
been much polished
and restored; still what a jewel this panel is, which
is said to represent
the finding of Moses! Compare the banks of the Nile
with this palace and this
pleasaunce of the purest Renaissance. Its
bulrushes are turned to pergolas,
its pyramids to a maze of pillars and
of marble terraces, and there is a bear
in the foreground eating honey,
a crane, a rabbit, a long-eared goat, and
other beasts of singular
delight. It is strange to think of Fra Damiano
sitting in his rooms at
Bologna and preparing these same decorative panels
for a place which,
maybe, he had never seen. Above the doors is a fresco
attributed to
Giannicola Manni(?), and when the doors open you step out
straight upon
a little balcony, and down below lies the Umbrian plain,
without a break
of building, and straight in front of you Assisi lies upon
its broad,
calm hillside.
The work for the stalls of S. Pietro was
finished, it seems, in 1535,
but the pieces were not put together till 1591.
In that year, on the 4th
of August, a native architect undertook to put the
carvings in their
places. He worked so steadily that on Christmas Eve of that
same year,
"at the first vespers of the feast, the choir was solemnly
inaugurated
in a musical mass sung by the friars."
What a picture we
have--the dull light of the candles on the winter
morning and the monks
singing together, in the midst of all their
beautiful new woodwork!
A
curious incident is told in connection with the choir of S. Pietro and
three
citizens of Perugia. When on the 20th of June 1859, the papal
troops entered
Perugia, a detachment of them were quartered in the
church and monastery of
S. Pietro, after the town had been seized, and
three gentlemen of Perugia who
had been fighting for her liberty at the
gates found themselves cut off from
the town and surrounded by the Swiss
guard, who, however, were not conscious
of their presence, in the
monastery of S. Pietro. It will be remembered that
the monks of S.
Pietro, on this occasion, sided with the citizens, and one of
them, Fra
Santo, hustled the three gentlemen up into a little cupboard in
the
organ-loft where he kept them concealed for three whole days,
feeding
them, as best he could, with a little bread and water. One
other
gentleman, who was concealed in another part of the church, managed
to
escape under cover of certain dust-pans belonging to the friars,
with
which he passed himself off on the guard at the gates as a
sacristan.
Either he, or someone else, let the cat out of the bag about
the
gentlemen in the organ, and a most diligent search was set on
foot.
However, the little cupboard escaped notice for the time, and on
the
morning of the fourth day of their confinement, whilst the Papal
guard
were getting their pay, Fra Santo and another monk took from the
stalls
the ropes which they had cut from their bells on the preceding
evening,
and tying these to the balcony of the choir, they hastily let out
the
three gentlemen from the organ, who clambered down the ropes, and
waving
adieu to their benefactors, scampered off as quickly as they
could
across the open country. Five hours later the Pope's guard went up
into
the organ, but even then they failed to discover the cupboard
whence
their enemies had so lately flown!
When, some time later, the
monks of S. Pietro went to Rome to beg the
Pope's pardon for the part they
had played against him in the siege of
Perugia, the heaviest blame fell, of
course, on Fra Santo; but his
Holiness with extreme good sense thus put an
end to the question: "If
Fra Santo has done what you tell me he has, God has
willed that he
should do so, and we must ever respect the will of
God."
There are one or two lovely bits of della Robbia work in the
refectory
of the monastery, a fresco by Tiberio d'Assisi(?) in the chapel,
and a
fine well in one of the cloisters. The garden, too, is very
charming,
but it is not easy to get permission to wander in these pleasant
places
where popes and monks and men of learning spent such pleasant and
such
profitable hours. The place is now occupied by students as the
whole
convent was turned last year (1896) into a great agricultural
college.
(See Note, p. 163.)
S. COSTANZO.
A little lower
down the hill is the small church dedicated to S.
Costanzo. For some obscure
reason this saint, who is purely local, has
become the patron saint of
lovers, and on his feast day all the lovers
of the neighbourhood assemble at
the shrine. If the eye of S. Costanzo
blinks at the young man or the girl who
kneel before his image, they
feel a happy certainty that the course of their
affection will run
smooth, and that the year will end in happy
union.
S. Costanzo was converted to the Christian faith by S. Ercolano
I., whom
he succeeded as bishop of Perugia, and Ciatti gives us a long list
of
his virtues and his miracles. The blind of the city received
their
sight from him, we hear, and the lame were made to walk. But all
his
miracles and his conversions made him an object of hatred to the
pagans,
and one day he was seized together with his followers, and thrown
into
prison. They were then put into scalding baths, "but," says Ciatti,
"the
Holy Ghost, who filled their souls with fire, tempered the
external
heat, and they sang hymns to signify their great tranquillity."
Their
only discomfort lay in the darkness all around them, but soon
"a
wonderful brightness appeared unto them from heaven which comforted
them
exceedingly." Then the pagans continued their tortures and forced
the
Saint to walk on burning embers, but as these did him no harm he
was
stripped and covered with red hot coals; and all the time he went
on
singing much to the annoyance of his tormentors. Finally he and
his
followers made their escape and fled to Spello, where fresh
conversions,
followed by fresh tortures, are recounted. At last, in 154 A.D.,
he met
his death at Spoleto. His body was taken back to Perugia by a
certain
Serviano da Foligno, who found it "surrounded by a choir of
rejoicing
angels, and in a shroud of heavenly light. The holy burden was too
heavy
for Serviano to carry alone, and he called on two men who were
passing
by to help him. At first they refused and scoffed at the miracles
he
related, whereupon they were both struck blind, and trembling,
they
prayed for mercy to the God of the Christians. On touching the body
of
the Saint they received their sight, whereat they gladly helped to
carry
it into Perugia. They entered by Porta S. Pietro, and were met by
many
of the faithful." The body of S. Costanzo is buried in the little
church
outside the Porta S. Pietro, rebuilt by the present Pope, and
the
beautiful byzantine doorway seems a fit entrance to the tomb of
this
suffering and much tormented martyr of
Perugia.
CHAPTER VII
_Piazza del Papa, S. Severo,
Porta Sole, S. Agostino, and S.
Francesco al Monte_
The
Piazza del Papa[69] lies a little to the right of the entrance door
to the
Duomo. In former times the straw market was held in this square,
which was
then called the Piazza di Paglia, and at that period the
statue of Pope
Julius occupied a splendid position on the steps of the
cathedral. But during
the great revolt against the Papacy in 1780 the
Pope's statue was taken away
from its prominent place by some wise
persons who foresaw its destruction
should they allow it to remain
there, and it was bundled into the cellar of a
tavern in the town, where
it remained, not, it must be confessed, entirely
incognito, till
people's nerves had calmed a little.[70] Not so very long ago
the Pope
was once more brought to the light of day and set in his
present
position.
Pope Julius III. is a great figure in Perugian
history. He is in a sense
a lay figure, for he never set foot in the city
after his student days,
and he was worshipped almost in the manner of an
unseen deity by the
Perugians. Julius succeeded Paul III., and though he by
no means did
away with the supreme power of the
[Illustration: HOUSE
IN THE VIA PERNICE]
Church in the city, still he mitigated many of the
hardships and the
ignominies which that power had entailed in the hands of
the great
Farnese. When Paul III. died in 1549 his fortress remained as a
legacy
to the city, with a Castellano to watch over its (Papal)
interests.
This man proceeded to rule as his master had taught him, and he
defended
the castle vigilantly against the Pope's nephew, who made some
efforts
to gain possession of so rich a prize.
The policy of Julius
III. was of a much milder order. "Julius had always
loved our city with a
peculiar partiality," says Mariotti, "and he sent
his relation Cardinal della
Corgna hither, endowing him with full
authority, and hardly had the Cardinal
arrived than he restored to the
city the arms of which she had been deprived
so long; and in February of
that same year Julius III. sent a brief to the
holders of ecclesiastical
liberty, which was addressed to the _Priori delle
Arte_ (heads of City
Guilds), a title which had not been heard of in Perugia
since 1539; and
to this grace the same Pope added considerable sums of money
for the
maintenance of those same magistrates...."
It will be easy to
anyone who has formed even a dim conception of what
the strength of the
spirit of liberty was like in the minds of the
Perugians to understand the
pure sensation of delight which the Pope's
open acknowledgment of their old
municipal rule, followed as it was by a
message couched in such friendly
terms, was likely to produce. Fretting
as the citizens had been for many
years under the rule of the despotic
Paul, they hailed his more temperate
successor as a sort of saviour, and
they determined to express their
sentiments of joy in what Bonazzi fitly
terms "a day of political
bacchanalia."[71]
"So on the morning of the first day in May the
heads of the
principal guilds of the Mercanzia and the Cambio met in the
piazza,
and there having put aside their black apparel (Paul III.
had
Insisted on the _Priori_ wearing a form of mourning, in order,
and
probably with perfect wisdom, to insist on his own authority
in
Perugia), they reassumed the crimson of the former _Priori_,
and
thrusting their heads through the golden chains which the
Pope's
Vice-Legate himself insisted upon hanging round them in token
of
their reinstatement, they took their seats upon the damask
benches
and listened to the Mass of the Holy Ghost, sung by the
Vice-Legate. Then, upon leaving the church, all the religious
orders,
the _Confraternitas_, the guilds, the gentlemen, the
troops, and the
excited populace seeing the transfigured
magistrates, lifted a frenzied
cry, and forming into a monstrous
procession to the sound of pipes, of
drums, of trumpets, bells, and
much artillery, the whole crowd followed
the _Priori_ to the Church
of S. Agostino and there, having heard
another musical mass, the
new magistrates, followed by an ever
increasing and clamorous
cortege, went on to take up quarters on the
first floor of the
Palazzo Pubblico."
Not satisfied with this
demonstration of their delight and loyalty
toward the new Pope, the Perugians
determined to commemorate the
occasion through the medium of art. They
commissioned Adone Doni to
paint the above described scene of the
reinstatement of the magistrates
(see the picture in the Palazzo Pubblico),
whilst Vincenzo Danti, then a
mere boy, was employed to make the big bronze
statue of Julius III.,
which is one of the most remarkable points in the
present town.
But to us who know the almost purely democratic, or at
least municipal,
tendencies of past Perugia, this great bronze figure of a
Pope eternally
blessing the city always excites a sense of something false
and
contradictory, and had we been permitted to visit the benevolent
Julius
in the caverns of the wine shop, we should have felt him in that
place
to be a truer symbol of the spirit of the town throughout her
troubled
history.
S. SEVERO.
From the Piazza del Papa
several roads branch off to different points of
the town. To the right the
Via Bontempi leads down past some beautiful
old palaces into a network of
typical Perugian streets. The churches of
S. Fiorenzo, the Carmine, and S.
Maria Nuova, all of which have
_gonfaloni_ or banners by Bonfigli, lie in
this direction, and are very
well worth visiting. Indeed, the _gonfalone_ in
S. Maria Nuova is
extraordinarily interesting: a typical specimen of that
tragic and
almost passionate form of art which arose out of, and answered to,
the
needs of a people convinced of its own moral depravity (see p. 232).
To
the left of the Via Bontempi a narrow street winds steeply up the
hill
to the church of S. Severo, which stands high up above the church of
S.
Maria Nuova, and commands a splendid view to the east of the city,
and
away across the valley of the Tiber to Assisi. "It is asserted by
some
persons," says Siepi, "that in the year 1007 a little colony
of
Camaldolese monks was transferred to the city of Perugia, who,
during
the lifetime of their holy founder, took up their abode on the hill
of
S. Severo, and here, upon the ruins of an ancient temple, which
some
believe was dedicated to the sun god, and upon a spot which might
be
termed the Acropolis of Perugia, they built their church, and
dedicated
it to S. Severo, Bishop of Ravenna, probably because they came
into
Perugia from that same city." As to whether the church of S. Severo
was
really built on the site of an old pagan temple dedicated to the sun
god
we cannot say; it is certain that this whole quarter of the town
is
called Porta Sole, but, however it be, the church of the
Camaldolese
monks has been quite altered in the course of centuries, and,
except for
its position and its fresco, it has not much to charm the
casual
tourist. During later restorations the outer porch with Raphael's
and
Perugino's fresco was preserved, and built into a little chapel,
where
we see it now. The fresco is signed 1505, so Raphael was no longer
a
boy when he painted it. Some years later he painted his great
pictures
in the Stanze of the Vatican, and, perhaps, he was feeling his way
to
these grand compositions when he drew his semi-circle of saints on
the
walls of the little old church of S. Severo. Did the master
Perugino
watch his brilliant pupil as he painted? There is a touch of pathos
in
the facts which follow:--Raphael the mighty genius dies, and Rome
goes
into mourning for him; fourteen or fifteen years go by, and
Perugino,
who, be it remembered, was not a young man when the slim youth
from
Urbino came one day into his studio and asked to learn the art
of
painting from him, comes back to the spot where Raphael's fresco
shines
upon the wall, and paints, in his most faded style, the six pale
saints
which we now see below it....
PORTA SOLE.
But to
return once more to the piazza. Another road leads up immediately
behind the
statue of Pope Julius to one of the most surprising points in
the city,
namely, the bastions of Porta Sole. It was to this high point,
which commands
an extraordinary view over the north of the town, that
Dante alluded when
writing of Perugia:
"Intra Tupino e l'acqua che discende
Del colle eletto del beato Ubaldo
Fertile costa d'alto monte
pende,
Onde Perugia sente freddo e caldo
Da Porta Sole, e
diretro le piange
Per grave giogo Nocera con Gualdo."
Porta
Sole is mixed up with a strange and a most typical bit of Perugian
history.
We have seen how much this city was influenced by the popes,
and how, in the
many fluctuations of her history, she nearly always
returned to the nominal
rule of the Church of Rome. Early in the
fourteenth century she broke away
for a time from Papal power, but in
1370 again swore allegiance to Pope Urban
IV., who sent his brother,
Cardinal Albano, to receive the act of submission
from her people. The
following year the Cardinal of Jerusalem came to Perugia
to establish
peace between the nobles and the _Raspanti_. He was escorted by
about
500 horsemen and 300 infantry, and the people received him
with
enthusiasm, coming out to meet him with palms in their hands, and
cries
of "Viva Santa Madre Chiesa, eviva il Signore!" Unfortunately his
wise
rule lasted but a year, and he was succeeded by a very different sort
of
person, namely, the Abbot of Mommaggiore from Cluny (see p. 30),
who
arrived in Perugia in a most hostile frame of mind, and quite
prepared
for war and for revolts of every kind. The Abbot at once set to work
to
build for himself fortresses, the like of which, as one proud
chronicler
relates, had never before been seen in Italy. He erected a
massive
citadel at Porta Sole, and in order to be in connection with the
Palazzo
dei Priori he made a covered passage with high machicolated walls
to
join the two together. In doing this he did not scruple to knock down
a
large part of the cathedral which happened to come in his way. At
Porta
S. Antonio, too, the Abbot built some large and splendid houses, part
of
which may still be seen, and these he joined by means of a
covered
passage to the other citadel on Porta Sole. Thus Mommaggiore may be
said
to have had a run over half the city of Perugia. So beautiful
and
luxurious were his palaces at S. Antonio, that we are told they seemed
a
veritable paradise. In them he stored enough wine and flour and
other
things to last him and his French companions for at least ten
years,
and not content with all these preparations for a possible revolt of
the
citizens, he even called in the help of an English _condottiere_,
Sir
John Hawkwood, who was at that time in the service of the Church,
to
come and ravage all the country round Perugia.
The Perugians looked
on in silence, and in silence they planned a
desperate plan of revolution,
for they were determined to resist this
abominable French Abbot and to assert
their former authority. Silently,
and with bowed heads, they watched the
Abbot's troops scouring the
streets on the evening of the 12th December 1375;
and not till night had
fallen on the town did a hum arise. Then deep growling
sounds rang
through the darkness of the night, and the tyrant, sitting in
his
palace, knew that the men of the town were up, and that a
mighty
mischief was preparing. Down in the Porta S. Angelo the cry of "Viva
il
Popolo" was heard, and with one accord, little and great, nobles
and
people, forgetting private injuries and discords, and moved by a
single
purpose, clasping hands and crying, "Viva il Popolo, and death to
the
Abbot and the pastors of the Church," rushed into the piazza just as
the
sun had risen. The terrified Abbot, seeing that the people were about
to
storm the Palazzo Pubblico, fled with his friends and soldiers along
the
covered passages to his palace at S. Antonio. The furious citizens
were
quick to follow and arrived before the fortress with all sorts
of
infernal machines, amongst others a large catapult which hurled
forth
stones of such a size and with such excellent effect that it
received
the name of _Cacciaprete_ (Kick out the priests). We hear of a
great
battle which took place when the Abbot, being besieged in his
citadel,
was forced to implore the help of Sir John Hawkwood; but the
latter,
having been well bribed by the Perugians, abandoned his
unfortunate
patron, leaving him, surrounded night and day by a crowd of
angry
citizens, to meditate upon the various fortunes of war. At
last,
however, a peace was concluded, and Sir John Hawkwood arrived at
the
head of 300 lancers[72] to escort the Abbot, his French friends, and
his
1500 horse and soldiers safe beyond the city. The Perugians,
seeing
their enemy the Abbot arrayed in heavy armour and hardly able to
lift
his feet, slipping moreover at every turn upon the muddy ground,
saluted
him with shrill whistles, which even the mighty Hawkwood was unable
to
suppress, and a chronicler devoutly tells us that "thus in the name
of
God, of His holy Mother Mary, and of the blessed Saints:
Ercolano,
Lorenzo, and Costanzo, was the city of Perugia delivered from the
hands
of those accursed pastors of the Church." The happy event was
celebrated
by grand religious functions, although the revolt had been
entirely
against the temporal power of the Pope. Even Milan and Florence
rejoiced
at the news, and ambassadors from Siena and from Arezzo came to
Perugia
to grace the feasts and the rejoicings with their presence.
"_Priori_
and treasurers of the Republic, doctors, nobles, _Raspanti_,
and
_Beccherini_, danced for a whole week, day and night, in
friendly
concord, and there were fireworks and much sound of
music." |
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