|
These things were done at Porta Sole in the past. The Abbot's
palaces
and covered passages were well-nigh battered to bits by the
revengeful
citizens, but the charm of the small piazza has not vanished with
them.
Looking from the bastions one still can trace a portion of the
covered
passage by which the terror-stricken Abbot fled at sunrise to
his
palaces at Porta Sant' Antonio; and on winter evenings we have
often
stood there, watching, with an ever fresh delight, the brown roofs
of
the slumbering town below--the brown woods of the browner
Apennines
beyond; and seen them fade and gather into one harmonious whole
just as
they did five hundred years ago, when Mommaggiore sat at supper
and
heard the first low hum of revolution.
From the piazza of Porta
Sole a steep paved road or staircase leads down
to the Piazza Grimani, and
here one is confronted by what is perhaps the
most remarkable point in the
whole city, namely, the Arch of
Augustus.[73]
ARCH OF
AUGUSTUS.
In Dennis' admirable account of Perugia he gives a full
description of
this arch:--
"The best preserved and grandest of
all the gates of Perugia," he
says, "is the _Arco d'Augusto_, so called
from the inscription,
_Augusta Perusia_, over the arch. It is formed of
regular masonry
of travertine, uncemented, in courses of 18 inches high;
some of
the blocks being 3 or 4 feet in length. The masonry of the
arch
hardly corresponds with that below it and is probably of
subsequent
date and Roman, as the inscription seems to testify, though
the
letters are not necessarily coeval with the structure. The arch
is
skew or oblique; and the gate is double, like those of Volterra
and
Cosa. Above the arch is a frieze of six Ionic colonnettes,
fluted,
alternating with shields; and from this springs another arch,
now
blocked up, surmounted by a second frieze of Ionic pilasters,
not
fluted. All the work above the lower arch is evidently of
later
date than the original construction of the gateway.... This
gate
stands recessed from the line of the city wall, and is flanked
on
either hand by a tower, projecting about 20 feet, and rising,
narrowing upwards, to a level with the top of the wall above the
gate.
The masonry of these towers, to the height of the imposts of
the arch,
corresponds with that of the gate itself, and seems to be
the original
structure, all above that height is of a later
period.... The gate still
forms one of the entrances to the city,
though there is a populous
suburb without its walls. Its appearance
is most imposing. The lofty
towers, like ponderous obelisks,
truncated--the tall archway recessed
between them--the frieze of
shields and colonnettes above it--the second
arch soaring over all,
a gallery, it may be, whence to annoy the
foe--the venerable
masonry overgrown with moss, or dark with the breath
of ages--form
a whole which carries the mind most forcibly into the
past."
The history of the arch of Augustus, or _Porta urbica etrusca_,
has been
given again and again by local and by foreign guide-books
and
historians, but we know of no better account than the above by
Dennis,
and little is left to say on the subject here. In speaking of
Etruscan
walls in another part of his book, Dennis remarks that one of their
most
striking features is the apparent newness of the stone. The big
blocks
of travertine on the Arco d'Augusto are as sharp almost as on the
day
when the Etruscans brought them up the hill, something like
three
thousand years ago, the marks of the individual masons are
perfectly
clear upon their faces, and time has mellowed the light and
graceful
colonnade of the Renaissance and Roman architecture, as much or
more
than that of the vanished people.
For a vivid first impression of
the city one should certainly enter it
from its northern side, and pass at
once into its grim, dark, mediæval
streets, through these splendid early
portals. The usual approach from
the station, which is certainly no quicker
and much more tedious, gives
nothing like the same impression of the real
Perugia, which we love to
read about and study.
[Illustration: ARCO
D'AUGUSTO]
S. AGOSTINO.
Many roads meet in the Piazza Grimani,
and joining as it were together,
pass back to the heart of the town through
the arch of Augustus. The
whole of the Borgo S. Angelo, which spreads away to
the north of the
piazza, though enclosed by very early walls, is not part of
the first
city of Perugia, and is indeed a little city of its own with one
main
street, the Via Longara, and houses closely packed on either
side.[74]
To the right as one passes up it is the church of S. Agostino, with
its
wonderful choir--one of those choirs which, by its exquisite variety
of
design and transformation of the wood to beasts, delights and
fascinates
one.
The choir was made in 1502, and, as Mariotti, who
describes it at
length, remarks, it is "indeed worthy of praise." Perugino
himself
supplied the designs, which were carried out by his Florentine
friend
Baccio d'Agnolo, and Perugino saw that the payment of the work was
good:
1120 florins down at the end of the year when the work was
done.[75]
S. Agostino, like other churches of the town, has long since
been
despoiled of its best treasures. We read a long list of its
early
pictures; the crowning glory of these, the large and
many-sided
altar-piece by Perugino, was pulled to bits and scattered during
the
Napoleonic raids. The history of this great altar-piece has been
traced
with extraordinary precision, and as it throws some light on the ways
of
the painter we give a sketch of it here. It seems that in the autumn
of
1502 the indefatigable Pietro signed a contract in which he promised
to
paint his "Sposalizio" for the Duomo, three other smaller
pictures,
designs for the stalls of S. Agostino, and finally an immense
two-sided
altar-piece for that same church. As may easily be imagined
the
[Illustration: S. AGOSTINO AND PORTA BULAGAJO]
carrying out of
this colossal contract was no light matter, and it
dragged on for years
during which time Perugino did not hesitate to
embark on several other works;
and, not at all abashed by his own lack
of faith in promises, we find him
writing to the friars of S. Agostino
from Pieve di Castello, where he was for
the time engaged on other work,
begging them in a large round hand and most
marvellous spelling, to give
some corn to one of his proteges, bearer of the
letter (see Pinacoteca).
The letter is dated March 30, 1512. The next we hear
of the picture is
in the autumn of 1521 when there is a question about
payment which
proves that the work was finished. It is not an easy matter
to
reconstruct this picture, but we have seen the plan of it in a
very
early manuscript which shows a grand pile of frame and canvasses much
in
the style of Pinturicchio's altar-piece in the Pinacoteca. Of all
its
many parts Perugia has only kept a few of the saints, the Baptism,
the
Nativity and the _Pieta_(?). We read of scattered fragments in
such
different towns as Grenoble, Toulouse, Lyons, and Nantes. The
Madonna
herself, we hear, was pierced by a German ball at
Strasburg.
There is in a side chapel of S. Agostino a rather beautiful
old fresco,
probably by some scholar of Perugino, of a Madonna and some
saints with
a white rabbit in the foreground. Looking one day at the picture
we
wondered vaguely why the rabbit had been painted there: "Ma,
per
bellezza," hazarded the small son of the sacristan with the
delightful
intuition peculiar to the children of his nation. No doubt he
was
perfectly right. Another good fresco by Perugino or his scholars may
be
found, strangely enough, in the back passage of a baker's shop a
little
farther up the Via Longara; but before leaving the church of S.
Agostino
it would be well to look at the splendid meeting-room of
the
Confraternita next door to it. This room, like that at S. Francesco,
is
a magnificent specimen of rather heavy and sumptuous
Renaissance
wood-carving.
S. ANGELO.
At the very end of the
Borgo, just before turning into the open country,
is the little old temple of
S. Angelo. One of the earliest facts we find
in the history of Perugia is
that this temple was the only building
which escaped the fire kindled by
Caius Cestius (see p. 10). The church
is probably built on the site of some
old Etruscan temple, but in its
present state it bears only a phantom
resemblance to the form of its
first architecture. Some say that the early
temple was dedicated to Pan,
more likely it was a temple to Venus or Vulcan.
Conestabile declares
that three distinct periods of building can be traced in
it, and he
suggests that the original temple was pulled down and rebuilt
by
ignorant early Christians with the ruins of another temple dedicated
to
Flora. The pillars are certainly of different sizes and very
different
qualities of stone. Some few are of Greek marble, and one has
an
Etruscan capital; yet in Fergusson's description of S. Angelo he
says
that "the materials are apparently original and made for the place
they
occupy;" he also suggests that the church was originally used as
a
baptistery, or may have been dedicated to some martyr, "but in the
heart
of Etruria," he adds, "this form may have been adopted for
other
reasons, the force of which we are hardly able at present to
appreciate;
though in all cases locality is one of the strongest influencing
powers
as far as architectural forms are concerned." In the first form of
the
Christian building it was surrounded by a third row of columns (see
p.
171) which were taken by the Abbot of S. Pietro to adorn his
new
basilica, and in those times the third circle stood open to the
air
[Illustration: CHURCH OF S. ANGELO]
with vestibules and
atrium. The altar of sacrifice, now a side altar,
stood in the centre of the
church where the hideous rococo baldachino
stands to-day. The small square
pillar with the Latin inscription was
probably moved from its place, and
turned to the north at the time
when, as a local writer fitly says, "the
architecture of S. Angelo was
burdened by so many bagatelles and such a
profusion of false ornament."
Among other late Christian "ornaments" in S.
Angelo we must mention the
body of a young Saint which lies embalmed under
one of the side altars.
It is one of those odd pathetic bits of bad taste
which somehow charm
us. The Saint is dressed in tawdry armour, but his face
and limbs are
exquisitely fine, his expression pure and very peaceful. His
hair is
long, the skin of his face waxen, he seems to be merely sleeping. One
of
the very earliest Umbrian frescoes of Perugia, "La Madonna del
Verde,"
is painted in a chapel to the right. The whole building is a
remarkable
mixture of early pagan, of Roman, and of Christian art, and we can
only
regret that the last should have been added later, and in its worst
and
most degraded era.
The temple stands on a quiet plot of ground
within the city walls,
which, a little to the left of it, end in a great
mediæval tower or
portcullis put up in time of war by a _condottiere_! It
needed the
Umbrian sky, it required the Umbrian landscape to make of such
strange
contrasts an harmonious whole. Yet S. Angelo is one of those
things
which at once possesses men's fancy, and we read that even in the
middle
ages fantastic legends centred round it, and that the early
writers
believed it to be the "pavilion of Orlando."
*
* * * *
Having, in this chapter, run through some few
historical facts relating
to a Pope, an Abbot, two Umbrian painters and a
pagan temple, we may as
well complete the medley with one or two calm records
of the Umbrian
saints. Leaving the church of S. Angelo one passes back to the
street
and out through the Porta S. Angelo into the open country. The gate
is
half a castle, and was built by Fortebraccio when he was
strengthening
the city with new walls. There is a charming detail in the life
of S.
Francis connected with it. We hear that when Pope Honorius III.
was
staying at Perugia, the enthusiasm for saint Francis of Assisi was
at
its height, and the Pope with all his court went down across the
plain
to visit the quiet dwelling-place of the gentle Christ-like
teacher:
"And the friars of S. Francis," says Mariotti, "beheld many counts
and
cavaliers and other noble gentlemen, and a great number of
Cardinals,
Bishops, Abbots and different clergy, who all came down to see the
large
but humble congregation of S. Francis." And then the Saint returned
the
visit, and coming in person to call upon the Pope in order to
obtain
indulgences for his new church of the Angeli, it happened that as
he
passed through the Porta S. Angelo he met with S. Domenico who
himself
was hurrying in the same direction. They met each other in
the
archway--these two founders of great religious orders--"and with
their
usual charity they embraced each other." The picture is beautiful
and
striking indeed: maybe a hot May morning, and the two men, who more
than
most on earth had overcome themselves and elevated the souls of
other
men, staying to embrace in a quiet, homely fashion before
passing
further on into the presence of the acknowledged Pontiff of the
Church.
S. FRANCESCO AL MONTE.
A little further down the road
on the left hand side, is the monastery
of S. Francesco al Monte. We hear
that the place was endowed in the
following manner: "It happened that a rich
gentleman, Giacomo di
Buonconti de' Coppoli, who, in his houses of
Monteripido," (the hill on
which the present convent stands) "was wont most
tenderly to entertain
the blessed brother Egidio, delighted beyond power of
description in the
ecstatic trances of that Saint; and having become a
widower, by the
death of Donna Vita, who died childless, Messer Giacomo took
holy
orders, and in his will he ordered that his houses should be turned
into
the convent of S. Francesco al Monte which was therefore built in
1276
by the Minori Osservanti." We may conclude that Fra Egidio, who was
one
of the most fascinating followers of S. Francis, long outlived
his
ardent worshipper, for we hear that he spent a great deal of his time
in
the convent that was built to do honour to the Franciscan
order.
Poor Fra Egidio! when he knew that death was near he begged to be
taken
back to Assisi to die and be buried in the home of his loved leader;
but
the Perugians, although they simply idolized him, refused him this
last
comfort. They forced him to die in their midst so that they might
have
his corpse and profit by the miracles that they expected would be
worked
by it. They gave him a beautiful tomb at last, which may now be seen
in
the church of the University. His staff, his book, his poor brown
gown,
are kept in a crystal case tied up with roses and silk
ribbons.
The monastery of S. Francesco al Monte rises bare but
beautifully
proportioned on its hill top. Tall lines of slender cypress trees
guard
either side of the steep ascent or "sacro monte" which leads to it.
We
cannot explore the cells; the little church is bare, its
Perugino
altar-piece and other pictures gone, like the rest, to the
Pinacoteca;
but sitting on the grass-grown steps we may read one of the
most
delightful and ingenuous stories ever told about either Perugia or
the
followers of S. Francis:--
"So S. Louis, King of France, went
upon a pilgrimage to visit all
the sanctuaries upon the earth, and
hearing great fame of the
holiness of Brother Egidio, who had been one
of the first
companions of S. Francis, he set his heart on visiting him
in
person, wherefore he came to Perugia where Fra Egidio then
was
living. And coming to the door of the convent dressed as a poor
and
unknown pilgrim with but a few companions, he enquired with
great
insistence after Fra Egidio, saying nothing to the porter of who
it
was that asked. So the porter went to Fra Egidio, and told him
that
a pilgrim was asking for him at the door, and to Fra Egidio it
was
revealed by God that he who waited for him was the King of
France,
whereat he immediately and with the utmost fervour left his
cell
and hurried to the gate; and without further questioning
and
although they had never met before, with the most deep
devotion
those two kneeled down together kissing each other with such
a
sweet familiarity it seemed that they had held long fellowship
together: but in spite of all these things neither the one nor the
other
spoke a word; they merely held each other in that close
embrace, with
every sign of charitable love, in silence. And having
stayed together
thus for a long space of time without exchange of
words they parted from
each other; and S. Louis went forth upon his
journey and Fra Egidio
returned unto his cell." ...
Then we hear that the monks in the convent
arose and murmured together,
and questioned Fra Egidio about the mysterious
guest with whom he had
stayed so long in close embrace, and Fra Egidio told
them very simply
that it had been the King of France. Then they upbraided him
for his
discourtesy towards so great a man: "O Fra Egidio, wherefore hast
thou
been so rude as never to have spoken even one syllable to so devout
a
King who came all the way from France that he might see thee, and
hear
from thee some holy words?" And Fra Egidio answers them with
the
child-like and unruffled candour peculiar to his order, and begs
them
not to marvel at the mutual silence of that meeting,
"Because," he says, "as soon as we had embraced each other the
light of
wisdom revealed and showed to me his heart, and likewise
mine to him;
and thus by a divine concurrence seeing into each
other's hearts, we
understood far better, he, what I desired to say
to him, and I, what he
desired to say to me, than if we had spoken
together with our mouths;
and we found far greater consolation than
if we had attempted to explain
with our voice that which we felt in
our hearts: for, had we spoken with
our mouths, such is the
faultiness of human speech, we should more
likely have had
discomfort in the place of comfort: now therefore
understand, that
the King went from me marvellously contented, and his
whole soul
refreshed."
So King Louis of France went out across
the Umbrian hills, the Umbrian
Saint returned to his cell, and Perugia added
a new and splendid number
to her list of royal visitors. Probably this story,
be it a myth or be
it truth, has caused the confusion between the French King
and the
French bishop, one of whom is certainly a patron of the city to
this
day. The lilies of France are scattered everywhere at the feet of
the
Umbrian griffin. But the true patron of Perugia is S. Louis Bishop
of
Toulouse, and as far as we know the visit of King Louis of France
was
only recorded by the author of the _Fioretti_.
CHAPTER
VIII
_Via dei Priori--Perugino's House,--Madonna della
Luce--S.
Bernardino and S. Francesco al Prato_
Just under the
bell tower of the Palazzo Pubblico a narrow street,
called the Via dei
Priori, well-paved, and preserving many
characteristics of the mediæval city,
runs steeply down through the
Porta S. Susanna and into the open country by
the station. Once when the
nobles were fighting in the square above, or more
probably in the Corso,
the blood flowed so freely that it is said to have
come running down the
street in a crimson stream at night--hence the name of
Via del
Piscinello which is given to the street a little lower down. The
houses
are very old, very grim, and closely packed in the Via dei Priori.
The
_lumieri_, where the heads of enemies were hung, stand out
maliciously
upon the walls of the Palazzo Pubblico to the right, and many of
the
palaces have still their narrow doors for the dead or _porte
del
mortuccio_.[76]
From the Chiesa Nuova (built in 1218 but entirely
remodelled and spoilt
by bad decoration) a narrow street leads off to the
left and down past
some charming red brick palaces into a narrower street
where what is
known as Perugino's house still stands.
[Illustration:
THE OLD COLLEGIO DEI NOTARI, SAID TO BE THE STUDIO OF
PERUGINO]
Though
there seems to be but very slight evidence about the real abode
of the
painter, his studio has been fixed in the beautiful old corner
palace with
the red marble windows in the Via del Commercio off the
Corso. But one place
does as well as another to pin a legend to,
[Illustration: TORRE DEGLI
SCIRRI]
and this little house of mean appearance tucked away in a dark
and
somewhat dingy street, with only a marble slab to mark it, serves
the
purpose well enough. Indeed, if one believed Vasari, one could
with
ease imagine Perugino choosing such a spot as this to hide his wife,
his
crimes (?) and all his money in, and see him hurrying thither in
the
dusk of a December evening from some big church or city where he
had
been to paint an altar-piece for prince or pontiff. One can even
picture
the long dark cloak he wore to cover up his money bag, his little
cap
pressed low upon his rather cloudy forehead, and one can almost hear
him
chuckle as he eats his maccaroni and strokes the fair hair of the
woman
he so loved, thinking with the joy of malice of all the other women
who
would come to pray and weep before his saints and his
_Pietas_.
But this is nothing better than a dream. Blankly one looks at
the slab
above the door, at the wall from which even the frescoe of
S.
Christopher has vanished, and from the utter silence of the place
one
hurries away and further on down the Via dei Priori. The street
ends,
and one passes into the open country through the Porta S. Susanna.
Just
above is the _Torre degli Scirri_--one of the only specimens
remaining
of all the wealth of towers in the past. A tree has grown upon its
very
top as though to seal the peace which follows after strife. A
little
further on is the small church of the Madonna della Luce. The front
of
this church is a very dainty bit of architecture and was designed
by
Cesarino Roscetto, a Perugian goldsmith, who also made the silver
shrine
in the cathedral which holds the Virgin's ring. It has inside
a
beautiful altar piece by some scholar of Perugino. The picture
is
exquisite in colour and in sentiment. Siepi gives a long history
about
it, which, although it does not altogether fit in with the facts
of
dates, we cannot refrain from mentioning here. (Perhaps he was
alluding
to some older fresco which has disappeared.) He says that on the
12th of
September 1513 some youths were playing at cards under
the
[Illustration: ETRUSCAN ARCH OF S. LUCA]
wall of a butcher's
shop which in old days stood outside the church of
S. Francesco. One of them,
a young barber, called Fallerio, lost heavily
at the game, whereat he swore a
terrible oath, hearing which blasphemy
the Madonna in her shrine by the
wayside closed her eyes, and kept them
closed for the space of four whole
days. On the 16th she opened them
again. So great was the fame of this
miracle, and the sensation it
caused, that processions and great multitudes
of people came to worship
before her shrine, and on the 7th of April 1513 her
picture was carried
to its present place in the new church which the people
built for her,
and she was no longer called the Madonna di S. Luca, but the
Madonna of
Light to commemorate this wonderful occurrence.
From the
church one road leads out into the country through the old
Etruscan gate of
S. Luca and another to the right into the Piazza della
Giustizia: that fair
open green which holds one of the loveliest flowers
of Renaissance art--the
facade of the Oratory of S. Bernardino.
S. BERNARDINO.
The
Oratory was built in 1450 by the magistrates of Perugia, who were
anxious to
leave to their city some enduring mark of the man whose
influence in times of
extreme moral depravity and perpetual party strife
had been so purely one of
good to the citizens of Perugia. The life of
S. Bernardino of Siena is
familiar to most people. He, like S. Francis,
exercised an extraordinary
power over the minds of men in the middle
ages by the mere example of pure
living and sweetness of character, but
perhaps his power lay a little more in
preaching and in stirring men to
action than that of the saint of Assisi,
whose influence was more
absolutely that of peace.
S. Bernardino of
Siena was born at Massa, near Siena, in 1380. His
mother died early, leaving
the child to the care of an aunt. By this
lady, Diana degli Albizeschi, he
was educated with extreme care and
tenderness, and he grew up beautiful,
gracious, and very pure of heart.
At seventeen he joined a confraternity at
Siena, and by the early age of
twenty-four he had already shaken an always
weak constitution by his
great labours for the sick in the time of plague. He
died at Aquila in
the Abruzzi, and was canonized in 1450 by Pope Nicholas V.
S.
Bernardino's life was one perpetual strain towards the light in an
age
which was dark, and one of its greatest objects had been to
reconcile
the mutual hatred of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. He was full
of
child-like faith and wise philanthropy; and tradition says that it
was
he who started the first _Monte di Pieta_ or pawnshop, and
Perugia
claims the privilege of having seen the first of these
institutions.[77]
The figure of S. Bernardino is always unmistakable in
art, and it
becomes familiar to us in Perugia, where he exercised an
extraordinary
power, and where he would preach from his pulpit in the public
square to
an almost maddened crowd of penitents. The saint is always
represented
holding a square tablet with the initials of Christ set round
with rays
upon it, because he was accustomed to hold one of these
whilst
preaching. His face is emaciated, but beautiful both in line and
in
expression; it is a face which the spirit illumines with an
unmistakable
glory. Mrs Jameson, in her life of the saint, says that the
finest
sculptured portrait of him is that on the facade of his Oratory
at
Perugia; and certainly, if taken merely as a graceful bit of art,
few
things could do more honour to the man whose best tribute, however,
will
always be his extraordinary hold on the hearts of men throughout
the
whole of Italy.
In 1461 the people of Perugia called in a
Florentine sculptor, Agostino
Ducci or Gucci, to ornament the facade of their
new oratory. This
sculptor is described by both Vasari and Mariotti as
Agostino _della
Robbia_, and connected, either as a son or a brother, with
that
well-known family. The connection is, however, not proved, neither
does
his work seem to corroborate it in any way.[78]
The facade of S.
Bernardino is a marvellous and perhaps a unique thing
in art. The work on it
is light and airy like the winds of spring. The
figures of the angels, the
garlands, and the saint himself, are full of
that elegant and subtle charm
which now and then surprises one in
sculpture. Ducci made wonderful use of
the pale pink marble of the
country, mixing it with terra-cotta figures, bits
of blue sky, and
marble, creamy white, for all his garlands. Perhaps the
loveliest
figures, where all are lovely, are those of the six virtues,
Mercy,[79]
Holiness, and Purity, Religion, Mortification, and Patience, on
either
side of the entrance doors. But the different angels playing
on
different instruments, and the flying angels round the figure of
the
saint, are each delightful in their separate ways. Even the
inevitable
griffin seems softened by the hand of the Florentine sculptor, and
he
has admirably caught the purely spiritual nature of the saint, both
in
the large central portrait, and in the smaller plaques where some of
his
miracles are represented. Siepi gives a full description of
the
different scenes:
[Illustration: MERCY. DETAIL ON FACADE OF THE
ORATORY OF S. BERNARDINO]
"Under the two higher niches," he says,
"are two squares, and on
the right one of these we see the Saint, who,
whilst preaching on
the Isola Maggiore of our Lake of Trasimene received
into his order
the blessed Giacomo of the Marches.... To the left," he
continues,
"the Saint is discovered preaching, and illuminated by a
star,
which in the full light of day shines over his head, a
miracle
which happened in the city of Aquila five years before his
death,
while preaching the praises of Mary.... Three other miracles
of
the Saint are given on the frieze below. In the middle one of
these
we see the Saint preaching to the people of Perugia, and
the
bonfire which he made them light on the piazza of our Duomo,
where
books of superstition, of necromancy and the law of astrology
were
burned in public, together with fashionable follies of the
period:
packs of cards, obscene pictures, forbidden weapons and
ornaments
of female luxury--instruments all of iniquity and of
delight.
Therefore it is that from the flames demons are seen to rise.
In
the miracle to the right we see two children saved by the
intercession of the Saint from the furious waters of a mill-stream
in
which, having been caught, they were miraculously saved by the
Saint
from death...."
It is not very clear why this particular spot was chosen
from all others
on which to build the Oratory of S. Bernardino, but it was
probably
because it stood so close to the convent of S. Francesco al Prato,
where
the Saint, who himself was a Franciscan, would naturally stay when
he
paid his visits to Perugia. We hear that he was deeply attached to
a
certain bell which hung in the campanile of the convent, and which
bore
the name of Viola and was noted for the peculiar sweetness of its
voice.
It happened once, when all the bells of the town were ringing,
that
Viola fell. S. Bernardino was preaching at the minute up in the
square
of the cathedral, but by a miracle he heard her fall and stopped
his
sermon for an instant, saying to the people: "My children, Viola
has
fallen, but she is not harmed!" and he was right. Viola was set up
in
her place again and rings with a clear strong voice, dear to the
heart
of the Perugians, even in the present century.[80]
* * * * *
Long even before the birth of S.
Bernardino a much older order or
_Confraternita_ held its meetings in the
small church at the back of the
present oratory. This was the _Confraternita
di S. Andrea della
Giustizia_, and it was one of the earliest of those
remarkable
societies--one may almost describe them as religious guilds--which
rose
up out of that great devotional movement at the end of the middle
ages
which resulted in the extraordinary processions and displays of
the
"Flagellants." "The movement," says Doctor Creighton, "passed away;
but
it has left its dress as a distinctive badge to the confraternities
of
mercy which are familiar to the traveller in the streets of many
cities
of Italy."
Morals, as we have seen, were very low in the
thirteenth and the
fourteenth century; blood flowed freely in party feuds and
towns were
devastated and corrupted by the strife of church and people. All
these
things, and the great pestilence which ravaged the country and
the
cities, were taken, and probably with perfect justice, to be the
signs
of an offended deity. "It was then," says Bonazzi, "when men had
grown
familiar with death, that those strange songs arose which the
people
sang in the moonlight, wrapped in white sheets, whilst they danced
the
dances of the dead about the streets, clanging the bones together
in
weird accompaniment to their songs." Doctor Creighton[81] dates
this
movement to the end of the fourteenth century. He says also that
it
originated in Provence. Perugia, however, lays strong claim to
having
herself sown the first seed, and this as early as the middle of
the
thirteenth century, of the displays of the Flagellants.
In 1265 we
read the strange tale of a monk who describes himself as
"_Fra Raniero Fasano
de Peroscia Comenzatore della Regola dei Battuti di
Bologna_." Raniero tells
us that he was accustomed, as a young monk at
Perugia, to lead a life of
excessive privation and abnegation, and one
day, when scourging himself as
was his custom, he was joined in a
vision by certain saints who accompanied
him to the church of S.
Fiorenzo, and there they all beat themselves together
in front of the
high altar. This vision occurred day after day to Raniero,
but at last
one of the saints spoke to him and told him that it was the will
of
heaven that men should purge their sins in this same fashion.
Raniero
carried his tale to the Bishop, who expounded it in a sermon to
the
inhabitants of Perugia, and this, according to some historians, was
the
origin of all the fantastic demonstrations of public repentance
which
soon spread over Italy, and from which, as years went by, there
arose
the calmer and more practical institutions of Confraternities in
the
several cities. One of the earliest of these at Perugia itself was
the
company of S. Andrea, and it is interesting to read its laws
and
statutes. Through its own annals we find that it was started in
1374,
during the reign of Pope Gregory XI. "for the furtherance of the
worship
of God and of His Mother the blessed Virgin Mary, and of the
glorious
martyrs and protectors of the city--Messers Sancto Ercolano,
Sancto
Laurenzo, Sancto Costanzo, and Sancto Andrea the apostle; and for
the
honour and estate of the Holy Mother Church and her protectors;
and
further for the maintenance, the governing, the magnificence, and
the
peaceful state of the people and the city of Peroscia."
Infinite
and careful laws of civil and religious duties follow--laws for
the
maintenance of peace and the Christian comfort of souls: the day of
the saint
was to be most strictly kept, fasting if possible, or by him
who could not
fast, a feast was to be given to a beggar or twenty-five
paternosters told,
"and all must be at mass that day or pay a fine of
twenty soldi." But the
great work of the society of S. Andrea was the
help and protection of
criminals. Its members got permission from the
city government to meet those
who were going to execution, and to
accompany them to the scene of death,
comforting them by the way, and
sustaining them with prayers and even
sweetmeats to the very last. In
early times criminals were beheaded far from
the city walls; and in
Perugia the place of doom was down in the open country
on the site of an
old Etruscan tomb, the Torre di S. Manno. "Wherefore,"
writes one
historian, "in the fatal passing of these miserable people, the
pious
_disciplinati_ met them on the threshold, comforted them, assisted
them,
and went with them even unto the gallows." Hence probably the name
of
"Giustizia" given to this particular square, and not, as is
usually
said, because justice was carried out on the spot itself.
The
_Confraternita_ of S. Andrea continued to increase both in power and
in size.
Other societies of the same charitable sort sprang up all
through the city,
and after the death of S. Bernardino of Siena a new
one was started in his
name at Porta Eburnea. But in one of the great
fights between the nobles,
their buildings were so knocked about and
mutilated that the members of the
society had to seek out different
quarters, and they then joined themselves
to the older confraternity of
S. Andrea down at S. Francesco and thenceforth
"worked together,
extending their labour of charity to the inspection of
prisons, and to
the Christian comfort of prisoners."[82]
S.
FRANCESCO AL PRATO.
To the right of the Oratory of S. Bernardino is the
immense, but quite
ruined, church and convent of S. Francesco al Prato. S.
Francesco, more
even than S. Domenico and so many of the churches of Perugia,
is only
the skeleton of a once beautiful body from which the silken robes,
the
jewels, even the flesh, have been torn rudely off by men and time.
The
church was built in 1230, in the form of a Latin cross with a
single
nave. But from the moment it was built, owing to the crumbling nature
of
the soil, and the heavy and overweighted style of its architecture,
it
was threatened with immediate destruction, so that in 1737 it fell
in
almost completely.
Throughout the history of Perugia we read of
great events which centred
in S. Francesco, of great men who were buried
there, artists who
painted, and popes who blessed and prayed. Of all these
former
splendours, nothing remains beyond a carcase of stone walls.
The
pictures--the Raphael, the Pinturicchios and the Peruginos, with
the
exception of Bonfigli's banner in the chapel of the Gonfalone,[83]
and
one interesting early fresco down in the crypt,--have been removed
to
the Pinacoteca and to other towns. Fortebraccio's bones have gone to
the
museum, Fra Egidio's tomb is in the church near the museum, and the
roof
has fallen in upon a rubbish heap of beams, and bricks, and
mortar.
S. MARTINO.
There are several ways of returning to the
Duomo from the Piazza della
Giustizia. One of the pleasantest runs through a
bit of cultivated land
outside the town walls: the Via di San Francesco, and,
joining the Via
della Conca, passes up under the Arco d'Augusta and back by
the Via
Vecchia. But another way, which few could find who did not know of
it,
winds back into the heart of the old town, actually crossing
the
Etruscan walls in one place, and comes out opposite the Canonica,
having
passed the little old church of S. Martino.
S. Martino is so
old, and so much overshadowed by the big palace
opposite, it is sunk so low
upon the street, that passing by it
hurriedly one scarcely recognises it as a
church at all.[84] The high
altar has a very beautiful altar-piece by
Giannicola Manni--one of the
loveliest bits of Umbrian colouring that we
remember in Perugia, and
there is a rather faulty fresco by some scholar of
Perugino on the west
wall, redeemed by that subtle and sweet charm peculiar
to the work of
the master. The little church is guarded by a true friend, who
not only
honours its pictures, but has even copied them with faithful care,
and
the whole place is filled with something of the quiet and
religious
fervour which lingers only after centuries of prayer and incense,
and
which is lacking in so many of the more frequented churches of
the
town.
CHAPTER IX
_Pietro Perugino and the
Cambio_[85]
The name of Perugia is naturally connected with that of
Pietro Vannucci
_detto il Perugino_, or, as he preferred to sign himself,
_Petrus de
Castro Plebis_, who stamped the peculiar personality of his
painting
upon a whole school of Renaissance Italian art. Vannucci was by no
means
the first artist of the Umbrian school, but he was the man who
brought
it into general notice, and it was in the city of Perugia that he
lived
and worked, and had his school of painting.
The best of
Perugino's work, however, with the exception of his frescoes
in the Cambio,
is not to be found in his native town. The indefatigable
Napoleon had a
profound admiration for Pietro's altar-pieces. He sought
them out, he
insisted on getting every inch of them, down to their
smallest predellas, and
the splendid pictures of S. Pietro, S. Lorenzo,
and S. Agostino went over the
Alps to swell his galleries in the
Tuileries. The frescoes of the Cambio
could not go, and they at least
remain exactly as the master painted them. To
understand the man Pietro
as well as the artist, we must study in the Cambio,
for there his
portrait hangs face to face with a whole set of his frescoes,
and the
contrast of the painter's face and the faces he invariably gave to
his
saints is almost as strange as that between the Umbrian saints and
the
history of the times in which they lived and worked.
To understand
the painters of Perugia one must understand the period in
which they were
produced. One wonders whether Vasari reckoned at all
with this when he wrote
his life of Perugino. The Florentine was not
particularly just to Umbrian
painters in general, and of Pietro Vannucci
he paints a very unsympathetic
portrait. He accuses him of two great
faults: avarice and irreligion, and
these have become so inevitably
connected with Pietro's name that it is not
easy to dispute them. Yet,
if not absolutely false, the facts have been
grossly exaggerated.
Concerning the first--avarice--Vasari maintains that
Pietro painted
exclusively for the sake of gain, and never for that of art or
faith.
This accusation has been disproved by later writers in so far as
the
early life of Perugino is concerned. We hear, for instance, that
he
painted several banners for his native city in the time of plague
and
war, that he asked no money for them, and when the time of need was
past
he took them back and kept them in his studio. Also, merely as
an
amusing anecdote, Vasari himself tells us that Pietro could open
his
purse for the woman he loved, and dress her in the fairest and
the
costliest clothes, setting the pins and folds himself upon her
headgear.
In the latter part of his life, which was not without some shadow,
he
did paint for money, allowing soulless pictures to pass from his
studio
to the altars of believing monks and ladies; but his best work
belongs
to his earliest period, and there is no reason to believe that it
was
uninspired save by the inspiration of gold.
Concerning the second
accusation--lack of faith--we have dealt with it
at the end of Pietro's life,
and we can only add here that the man must
have been of super-human
gentleness who could live through the scenes
that Vannucci lived through, and
maintain the faith of childhood.
The portrait in the Cambio is a
stumbling block. The expression is heavy
and unspiritual. This fact jars, and
we resent it. (See frontispiece.)
But whatever Pietro's appearance,
whatever his personal character may
have been, he did two things: he left
behind him an enduring mark in the
history of art, and he gave the soul to
that considerable school of
painting from which young Raphael went forth into
the wondering world,
together with a host of other painters whose tendency
was entirely in
the direction of the spiritual and purifying elements in
human life.
* * * * *
Away to the
southwest of Perugia, above the lakes of Trasimene and
Chiusi, with a wide
view southwards towards Rome, and northwards to
Cortona, is the little
Umbrian hill-town of Citta della Pieve. It is so
deeply buried in its oak
woods that one can barely see it from the hills
and plains around it. The
town is very old and very sleepy, built of red
bricks with hardly any stones,
and scarcely any buildings of importance.
The streets seem fallen dead
asleep. "Why do you come here? The place is
dead. Nothing ever happens in our
city," said the melancholy daughter of
the landlord, and the girl, by her
unconscious words, explained the very
reason of our visit.
Nothing
ever happens in Citta della Pieve. The town has fallen on sleep
in its
delightful landscape--on sleep as silent and profound as that of
all the
fossil shells in the banks along the roads which lead to it. But
the place is
strangely and marvellously beautiful; it holds the very
essence of that
intense religious charm peculiar to the landscapes of
Umbria, and to the
painters who have painted them; without exaggeration,
we may say that the
city looks to-day just exactly as it looked over
four hundred years ago, at
the time when, to the lovers of art, its
history began and
ended.[86]
* * * * *
Pietro
Vannucci de Castro Plebis _detto il Perugino_, was born at Citta
della Pieve
in the year 1446. His parents were very poor, but they were
of a good family
and position. There were many children, and life was a
struggle for bread in
the small boy's home. When he was about eight, his
father, Christoforo
Vannucci, decided to educate him as a painter, and
so he brought him to the
city of Perugia, and there, as Vasari says,
"this child, who had been reared
in penury and want, was given as a shop
drudge to a painter who was not
particularly distinguished in his
calling, but who held the art in great
veneration, and highly honoured
the men who excelled therein." The painter
was probably Bonfigli, one of
the most delightful artists of the Umbrian
school, but Pietro must have
gathered instruction from other sources too,
from Fiorenzo di Lorenzo
and Piero della Francesca, who we know were painting
at that time. Maybe
the boy met them at their work in churches, maybe he even
travelled with
them as a sort of journeyman. But it was probably Bonfigli who
early
inspired him with an ambitious desire to spread his wings in
higher
spheres of art than the little Umbrian town afforded him, and who
gave
him the worldly-wise advice retailed to us at some length by
Vasari:
Perugino must go to Florence,
"for the air of that city
generates a desire for glory and honour,
and gives a natural quickness
to the perceptions of men. Yet it is
true that when a man has acquired
sufficient for his purposes in
Florence, if he wishes to effect more
than merely to live from day
to day, as do the beasts that perish, and
desires to become rich,
he must depart from its boundaries and seek
another market for the
excellence of his works and for the reputation
conferred on artists
by that city. For the city of Florence treats her
painters as Time
treats her works, which, having perfected, he destroys,
and by
little and little gradually consumes."
Pietro listened to
these naive counsels; he drank them in and he
followed them out to the
letter. When quite a young man he started
across the hills to Florence. He
probably travelled as a journeyman,
begging or earning his bread along the
way. He reached Florence, entered
the studio of Andrea Verrocchio, buried
himself in a passionate study of
his art, and, barely ten years after the
date when, as an almost unknown
artist, he had entered Florence with the
secret of his genius in his
soul, he left it again to go to Rome and paint a
portion of the Sistine
Chapel at the command of the reigning pope. Pietro
studied in good
schools and in excellently good society. In Florence he
probably met
with men like Botticelli, Credi, and certainly Leonardo da
Vinci.
Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, is said to have written the
following
lines about the two young painters:
"Due giovan par
d'etate e par d'amore
Lionardo da Vinci, e 'l Perusino
Pier
della Pieve, ch'e un divin pittore."
Divine in truth were the two young
men, for they were to be the fathers
of the Lombard and the Umbrian schools
of painting.
Perugino's earliest commissions for pictures were received
in Florence,
but nearly all the work of that period is lost. We cannot
exaggerate the
loss, but it is useless now to dwell on it and to describe the
vanished
frescoes of the Gesuati convent. Pietro was
[Illustration:
PERUGINO: MADONNA AND PATRON SAINTS OF PERUGIA PAINTED
FOR THE MAGISTRATES'
CHAPEL AT PERUGIA, NOW IN THE VATICAN AT ROME]
called to Rome about the
year 1483. There he painted several pictures on
the walls of the Sistine
chapel. Only two of them remain, and the
figures of Michelangelo's Last
Judgment have long obliterated the
sweet-faced Umbrian saints and landscapes
which used to cover the east
wall.[87] Having spent a little time in Rome,
Perugino returned to his
native land, and the best of his paintings belong to
that period--namely to the years
1490-1502. |
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