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The Story of Perugia

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First Edition, February 1898
Second Edition, December 1898
Third Edition, April 1900
Fourth Edition, May 1901

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Perugino.

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The   Story   of   Perugia
by        Margaret     Symons
and    Lina    Duff    Gordon
Illustrated by M. Helen James

London:        J.    M.    Dent   &   Co.
Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street
Covent Garden W.C.            1901

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PREFACE

WHEN but a little while ago we undertook to write a “guide book” to oneof the better known towns of Central Italy, we realised perhapsimperfectly how wide and full was the field of work which lay before us.The “story” of Perugia is, like the story of nearly all Italian towns,as full and varied as the story of a nation. Every side-light of historyis cast upon it, and nearly every phase of man’s policy and artreflected on its monuments. To do justice to so grand a pageant in anarrow space of time and binding was, we may fairly plead, no easy task;and now that the work is done, and the proofs returned to the printer,we are left with an inevitable regret; for it has been impossible for usto retain in shortened sentences and cramped description the charm ofall the tales and chronicles which we ourselves found necessary readingfor a full knowledge of so wide a subject.

If this small book have any claim to merit it is greatly due to thefaithful and ungrudging help rendered to its authors throughout theirstudy, by one true guide; by many old friends; and by the inhabitants ofthe town whose name it bears for title. We can never adequately expressour sense of gratitude to the people of Perugia, to whom we came asutter strangers, but who received us with such great courtesy andkindness as to make our stay and study in their midst a pleasure as wellas an education.

Our book is intended for the general traveller rather{viii} than for thestudent. We have offered no criticism, and have quoted whenever we couldfrom the pages of contemporary chronicles. We have dealt with Perugia aswith the heroine of a novel, describing her particular progress, and notconfounding it with that of neighbour towns, equally important in theirway, and each struggling, as perhaps only the cities of Italy knew howto struggle, towards an individual supremacy in a state lacerated byforeign wars and policies.

In dealing with one of the most vivid points in the history of thetown—the Rule of the Nobles—we have, with some diffidence,incorporated into our narrative the words of one who had already drawnhis description of the subject straight from the original source,treating it with such a powerful sympathy as it would have beenimpossible for us to rival. For further knowledge of this terribleperiod we can but refer the student to the chronicle of Matarazzo.(Archivio Storico, vol. xvi. part 2.)

With the art of Umbria we have dealt only shortly, and from the point ofview of sentiment rather than that of criticism. For a severe andthorough knowledge of the technique and use of colours employed by themen who lived through such scenes as we have described in chapters II.and III. we must refer the reader to the works of other authors. For ourdates, and facts in reference to art, we have relied on Kugler, Croweand Cavalcaselle, Rio, Vasari and the local writers, Mariotti,Lupatelli, Mezzanotte, etc.

It remains to give a list of the books which we have consulted for thehistory. Amongst these are the Perugian chronicles contained in theArchivio Storico d’Italia; Graziani, Matarazzo, Frolliere, andBontempi; Fabretti’s chronicles of Perugia, and his “Vita deiCondottieri, etc.”; and the local histories of Ciatti, Pellini,Bartoli, Mariotti, and Bonazzi. Villani{ix} and Sismondi have beenconsulted; Creighton’s “History of the Papacy during the Reformation,”and von Ranke’s “History of the Popes.”

Of the purely local histories mentioned above Bonazzi’s is the mostimportant. His two bulky volumes are excellent reading in spite of hissarcastic and often unjust bitterness against the clerical party. Anumber of local pamphlets, the names of whose authors we cannot hereenumerate, have been used for various details, together with other bookson a variety of subjects, such as Dennis’ “Etruria,” Broussole’s“Pélerinages Ombriens,” Hodgkin’s “Italy and her Invaders,” etc.,etc.

When all is told, by far the most valuable and trustworthy authority onPerugian matters is Annibale Mariotti. A local gossip who combines withhis gossiping qualities an exquisite sense of humour, and a real geniusfor investigation in matters relating to his native town, is the personof all others from whom to learn its actual life and history. Mariottiis an eminent specimen of this class of writers, and no one who isanxious to understand the spirit of Perugia should omit a careful studyof his works on thePopes, thePeople, and thePainters ofPerugia.

For personal help received we have the satisfaction of offering in thisplace our sincere thanks to Cav. Giuseppe Bellucci, professor at theUniversity of Perugia, whose wise and kindly counsel has led usthroughout to an understanding of countless points which must, withouthim, have remained unnoticed or obscure. Our notes on the museum arepractically his own. We would mention also with grateful thanks DrMarzio Romitelli, Arcidiacono of the cathedral of Perugia, whogenerously opened his library to us, and many of whose suggestions havebeen of service to us. To Count Vincenzo Ansidei, head of{x} the Perugianlibrary, our sincere thanks are offered here.

We must further acknowledge the help of Signor Novelli of Perugia; ofMrs Ross, Mr Hayllar, and Cav. Bruschi, head of the Marucelliana Libraryat Florence. Lastly, of Mr Walter Leaf and Mr Sidney Colvin in therevision of proofs.

The comfort of our quarters in the Hotel Brufani needs no description tomost Italian travellers, who are already familiar with that delightfulhouse; but we are glad to mention here our appreciation of the care andthoughtful kindness shown to us by our English hostess in the Umbriantown. The courtesy received by us at headquarters from the Prefect ofUmbria and Baroness Ferrari his wife, made our stay, from a purelysocial point of view, both easy and delightful.

To close these prefatory notes we can but say how sincerely we trustthat the following pages may serve only as a preparation, in morecapable hands, for further and far fuller records of a city whosehistory is as enthralling to the student of men as its pictures andposition must ever be to the lover of what is beautiful in nature and inart.

August 21st, 1897.

Am Hof. Davos.

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CONTENTS

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ILLUSTRATIONS

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The Story of Perugia

CHAPTER I

The earliest Origins of Perugia and growth of the City

SOMETIMES in a street or in a country road we meet an unknown person whoseems to us wonderfully and inexplicably attractive. Perhaps we onlycatch a passing vision; the face, the figure passes us, oftener than notwe never meet again, and even the memory of the vision which seemed sofull of life, so strong, and so enduring, passes with the years, and weforget. But had we only tried a little, it would, in almost everyinstance, have been possible to follow the figure up, to learn what wewanted to know about it, to understand the reason why the face was fullof meaning to us, and what it was which went before and gave the mouthits passion, the eyes their pain and sweetness. In nine cases out of tenwe can, in this nineteenth century, discover the birth and parentage,the loves and hates, of any human being we may wish to know. But this isnot the way with cities, and although they attract us in almostprecisely the same fashion as people do, we cannot always trace theirearliest origins. There are certain towns we come across in travel, ofwhich we know very well that we want to know{2} more. Perugia is one ofthese. It at once catches hold of one’s imagination. No one can see itand forget it. A breath of the past is in it—of a past which we dimlyfeel to be prehistoric. Boldly we set to work to learn its history, andat first this seems an easy matter: the later centuries are a full andan enthralling study, for as long as men knew how to write they werecertain to write about themselves, and the writers of Perugia had a widedramatic field to work upon. But then come the records which are notwritten—which, in fact, are merely hearsay; and further even thanhearsay is the period when we know that men existed, but which has nohistory at all beyond a few stone arrow heads, and bits of jade andflint. Yet, to be fair to a place of such extraordinary antiquity asthis early city of the Etruscan league, one is unwilling to leave asingle stone unturned, and in the following sketch we have gatheredtogether, as closely as we could, the earliest facts about a city whichattracts us, as those unknown people attract us whom we meet, admire,and lose again in the crowd.

“It seems,” says Bonazzi, the most modern historian of Perugia, “that inthe earlier periods of the world all this land of ours (Umbria) wascovered by the sea, and that only the highest tops of the Apennines rosehere and there, as islands might, above the waves. Then other hillsarose, a new soil was disclosed, and great and horrid animals, whoseteeth were sometimes metres long, came forth and trod the terrible wasteplaces. In the silence of these squalid solitudes, no voice of man hadyet been heard, and the stars went on their way unnoticed, across thefirmament of heaven....”

But Bonazzi’s science, though highly picturesque, was not entirelycorrect, and the following account, written by an inhabitant of Perugiawho has studied the{3} history of his town and neighbourhood with faithfulprecision and from the darkest periods of their existence, may well beinserted here.

We have no definite date or name for those first{4}men who came to livein this strange marshy wilderness. We have only the relics of theirpatient industry. An inexhaustible store of arrow-heads and otherbarbarous stone implements is found in all the hills around Perugia, andsplendid hatchet heads of jade upon the shores of Trasimene. No doubtthese men lived in holes and caves, perhaps at the foot of this hillwhere the present city of Perugia stands, or a little to the west of it,but their history is dark and very far away. Dark too and far away, asfar as written facts remain, is the history of that almost moremysterious race of men which followed on the prehistoric one, namely,the Etruscans.

This is no place in which to discuss the origin of that extraordinarypeople whose language and parentage, though they lived and laboured sideby side with the most cultivated and inquisitive of European nations, ispractically dead to us. It is enough at this point of our history tonote that the Etruscans were the first to seal their personality, withthe seal of a visible and tangible intelligence, upon this corner of theworld, and it is quite probable that they made one of their earliestcolonies upon the jutting spur of a line of hills which would haveattracted them upon arrival. It is certain that in course of timePerugia became one of the most powerful cities of the Etruscan league.Her museums are full of the pottery, tombs, inscriptions, toys, andcoins of the mysterious nation (see Museum, chapter XI.).

Innumerable myths grew up around the foreign people, and individualhistorians described their advent in individual places and pretty muchat random. The earliest chroniclers of Perugia, ignoring the men who hadperhaps existed for centuries before this unknown nationlanded,—ignoring too, the other settlers,—pounced upon a plum soprecious and romantic to stick into the pie of legends that they wereconcocting; they{5}

VIA DEL AQUEDOTTO, SHOWING TOWER OF THE CATHEDRAL

peeled and stoned the plum to suit their fancy, and having done so,stuck it in with many others to swell the list of dubious tales in theirlong-winded manuscripts. As these chroniclers were nearly always monks,it was natural enough that they should form their shambling history onthe one great history that{6} they possessed,i.e., the Bible. To themthe Etruscans were easily and most satisfactorily explained: theydescended from the first man, Adam, and they were the sons of Noah. Nay,the monks made an even happier hit, for they declared that Noah inperson climbed the Apennines and pitched his tent upon the spur of hillwhere the present city stands! We can well imagine the old monk Ciatti,one of the earliest historians of Perugia, sitting before his woodendesk upon some dreamy night in May, his Bible propped before him, allUmbria asleep beneath the stars outside his window, and compiling thefollowing entrancing legends concerning the Etruscans and their leader:“Serious writers holdJanus to be the same asNoah, who alone amongmen saw and knew all things during the space of six hundred years beforethe Deluge and three hundred years after the Deluge. The ancient medalswhich show the two faces of Janus are engraved with a ship, to denotethat he was Noah, who, entering an ark in the form of a ship, was savedby divine decree from the universal Deluge.”[1] Ciatti next goes on togive a delightful description of the arrival of Noah and his sons; “theypenetrated,” he says, “into Tuscany,[2] where, fascinated by theloveliness of the country, the agreeable qualities of the soil, thegentle air and the abundance of the earth, they determined to remain;but feeling uncertain where they should fix their dwelling, they wereadvised by certain augurs to build Perugia on the spot where it nowstands.” Some say that the name Perugia comes from the Greek word for“abundance.” Certainly Ciatti was able to weave this fact into hislegendary web: “Whilst, waiting{7} for the Augurs,” he writes, “two dovespassed by them, flying to their nest, one carrying a branch loaded witholives and the other an ear of corn. Soon after there came a big wildboar carrying on his tusks a bunch of grapes. They took these signs tomean good omens, and they decided to build Perugia on the spot.”

Ciatti must have been an honest chronicler. Had we been given his earlypossibilities of making history in our own fashion, we must inevitablyhave told a credulous public that the ark itself rested upon the spursof the Apennines and disgorged its contents on the hill where stands thepresent city of Perugia. But Ciatti withheld his hand from this, and wetoo must bare our heads before the fact of Ararat, and only hold to thatof Noah, in his five-hundredth year or so, wandering unwearied forth toform a mighty nation on the coasts of Italy!

But before leaving Ciatti and his early myths, we must do him thejustice to say that he was not utterly ignorant of a dim nation and ofdimmer monsters living perhaps before the days of the Deluge. The oldmonk, like other wise historians, sets to work to hunt up the heraldryof his native city, and thus he explains the origin of the griffin onthe city arms. The enthralling hunt described savours surely ofsomething in an even earlier age?

But, to pass from the realms of myth to those of reality, it seems quitecertain that the Etruscans—or Rasenae as they are sometimescalled—spread themselves over a large part of Italy, building andfortifying their cities, making roads and laws and temples, and castingthe light of an older art and civilisation upon the land to which theycame as colonists. One of the chief of their cities was Perugia.Fragments of the old walls, built perhaps three thousand years ago,still stand in places, clean-cut, erect, and menacing, around theUmbrian city.

The lives of the Etruscans can only be studied through their art, andPerugia holds an ample store of this in her museums. There, in thoserather dreary modern rooms, stone men and women smile upon their tombs,and the sides of these tombs bristle with long inscriptions written inan alphabet that we can partly read, but in a language that we cannotunderstand. Mirrors, and beautifully painted pots, children’s toys andladies’ curling-tongs—the Etruscan dead have left no lack of records oftheir ways of living. But, strong as was their personality, another anda stronger force had struggled through the soil of Italy. Rome hadarisen to shine upon the growing world. It remained for Rome to leavethe stamp of veritable history upon the city of Perugia.{9}

Throughout the early history of Rome, we catch dim rumours of anoccasional connection or warfare with this corner of Etruria. It is nottill 309B.C. that we have any distinct mention of Perugia in connectionwith Rome. In that year the Roman Consul, Fabius, fought a battle withthe Etruscans under the walls of the town. The Etruscans lost the day,Perugia and other cities of the League sued for a truce with Rome whichwas granted to them. Fabius entered Perugia “and this was the firsttime,” says Bartoli, “that the banner of foreigners had waved across ourcity.” Perugia bitterly resented the rule of the foreign power, and,breaking her truce, she made several passionate efforts to regain herfreedom. But in vain. Her blood, perhaps, was old, and grown corrupt,the blood of Rome was new and palpitating. She was again and againovercome by Fabius. In 206B.C. we find her, not exactly submitting toRome, but playing the part of a strong ally, and cutting down her woodsto help in the building of a fleet for Scipio. Her history continuesdark—overshadowed by that of Rome. We hear a faint rumble of the Romanbattles. We catch dull echoes of Hannibal and Trasimene, for Trasimeneis very near Perugia. Did some of her citizens creep down perhaps, andget a vision of the fight? Did any of those much-bewigged Etruscanladies, who we know were very independent in their ways, tuck up theirskirts and follow through the woods to have a look at the elephants andshudder at the swarthy African?

We cannot tell. The next clear point in her history is a terrible onefor Perugia. She fell, but she fell by a mighty hand, by that of theemperor Augustus. In the year 40B.C. the Roman Consul, LuciusAntoninus, who, it may be said, was defending the liberty of Rome whilstMark Antony lay lost in a{10} love-dream upon the banks of Nile, tookrefuge within the walls of Perugia from the pursuit of Octavius(Augustus) who then laid siege to the town. For seven months the bravelittle city held out, but she was reduced to such a terrible distress offamine that Lucius at last gave way, and opened her gates to theconqueror. Octavius entered Perugia covered with laurels. The citizensprayed for mercy. He spared most of the men and women, but he exceptedthree hundred of the elders and saw them singly killed before his eyes.When they prayed for grace he merely tossed his head back and repeated:“They must die.” This ordeal over, Octavius decided to postpone the sackof the city until the following day. But one of its citizens, CaiusCestius Macedonicus, hot with all the shame of the thing, got up atnight and made a funeral pyre of his house. He set fire to its walls,and as it burned he stabbed himself and died there. The flames spreadthrough the city, and before the morning Perugia was burned to theground. Nothing remained of all its buildings except the temple ofVulcan, and in memory of this fire the town was afterwards dedicated toVulcan instead of to Juno to whom it had formerly belonged. Octaviusreturned to Rome bearing before him the image of Juno, which alone hadbeen saved from the flames. Some years later he agreed to rebuild thecity, and hence the lettersAugusta Perusia over her gates.

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So laying aside for everPerusia Etrusca, that city of strange beasts,strange people, and strange myths, we facePerusia Augusta, or thePerugia of Rome.

For some centuries, strange as it may appear, the powerful old Umbrianhill-town seems to have fallen contentedly asleep under the rule of hergreat protector.{11} It was, as we know, the policy of Rome to adopt thelaws and customs of the people whom she conquered rather than to changethem, and indeed the alteration seldom went further than in name. TheEtruscan rulers therefore took the titles of Roman governors, they didnot really alter, and it is probable that the laws of the very earliestsettlement have never really become extinct. TheLucumo of theEtruscans was in all probability the descendant of the earliestprehistoric village chief, who developed into theDiumvir orrepresentative of the Roman Consul pretty much as the presentSindacosucceeded to the position of thePodestà of the middle ages.

Rome had always loved and studied the religions of the older people, andBonazzi infers that Rome “delighted in nursing on the breast of herrepublic those great masters of Divinity who could be made such powerfulpolitical instruments for her service.” The Romans must haveintermarried freely with the Etruscans; the mixture of names andlettering upon their tombs points to this fact. But the strong freshblood of the younger race seems to have overcome that of the morecorrupt one. Other tribes and other tongues pressed in upon the firstinhabitants and gradually the language, yes, and the memory of thestrange and fascinating people, died.

Of the Roman occupation little trace can be found in the architecture ofthe city, beyond the walls and gates and the inscriptions over some ofthese, together with a sorry fragment of a Roman bath. It must beremembered that the entire city was burned to the ground after thesiege—burned with all her wealth of monuments and temples—and it doesnot seem as though the Romans did much to beautify her with grandbuildings. Having no old buildings to use as raw material, they wereprobably content at this period{12} to build strong walls and housessuitable for a fortified town, thus fostering the warlike character ofher inhabitants which was to prove so great a point in followingcenturies.[4]

Roman rule was a very real piece of history, but it is not possible tosay that the period of myth and darkness had wholly passed away. Wepossess a certain knowledge of the Roman government, but the shadow ofthe Gothic and Barbarian night closes in upon it like a heavy pall; andthe next clear and startling point about Perugia is her recapture byBelisarius followed by the siege of Totila (or Baduila).

During those terrible centuries when Italy was being ravaged byperpetual invasions, her lands devastated by war and plagues and famine,and her cities, as one historian says, “no longer cities, but rather thecorpses of cities,” we find scant mention of actual harm done toPerugia, for it was the north which suffered first. However, as theGoths pressed southward upon Rome, as Rome herself wavered and sankbeneath the weight of the northern hordes, and of her own corruption, wegather that the Umbrian cities too became a prey to the barbarians, andthat Perugia suffered the fate of all her neighbours. Her historiansseek in vain for stated records of this time where all is darkness, butsome dim facts shine out, among them the steady growth of Christianitywithin the city.

The first important date we find follows nearly six hundred years afterher capture by Augustus. It was in 536A.D., that Justinian, who hadconceived the mighty plan of recovering Africa from the Vandals andItaly{13} from the Goths, sent one of his best generals, Constantine (underBelisarius), into Umbria to occupy the cities there. Constantine madePerugia his headquarters and for a while his possession of the townseems not to have been disputed by the Goths. Witigis left her on oneside as he passed with his armies down to Rome, and it remained for theindomitable Totila to wrest her (in 545) from the power of the ByzantineEmpire. Totila is a most prominent figure in the history of the city,and many are the myths which centre round him. He first attacked Assisi,and having conquered her, he turned his greedy gaze upon the fair hillcity opposite and instantly desired to possess her also. But realisingthe strength of her position, which was largely increased by theoccupation of a Byzantine general, he determined to get her by foulmeans rather than fair, and so he bribed one of her citizens to murderCyprian, who was then the general in command. The citizens rose in eagerrevolt against this treachery, and Totila soon found that he hadundertaken no light thing when he came to besiege the town. Indeedtradition says that the said siege lasted seven years, and however muchthis may have been exaggerated, it is certain that it was made a hardone for the Goth. Perugia was taken by storm, but after fearfulfighting; she fell, but she was upheld to the last by a new power,namely that of her faith. The story of S. Ercolano, the faithful Bishopof the Perugians, is told in another place (see pp. 245-246). It hasbeen admirably illustrated by Bonfigli, it has been described andhallowed in a hundred ways throughout the city’s chronicles, and it isvain for modern historians to tell us, as they are inclined to do, thatTotila never set foot in Perugia. Bonfigli’s fresco is terriblyconvincing in itself, as are also the naïve and delightful records ofCiatti and Pellini. Among the people of the town Totila has become one{14}of its most important facts, and they declare that his wife lies buriedclose to the Ponte Felcino together with her husband’s hidden treasure.

LOMBARD ARCH ON THE CHURCH OF S. AGATA

Gothic rule was short. Infinite and hurried changes follow on thisperiod. We next hear of the city in the hands of the Lombards. TheLombard occupation is almost as dark as the Gothic.[5] In 592, Perugia{15}became a Lombard Duchy ruled by the Duke Mauritius, who turned traitorto his trust and delivered the city to the Exarch of Ravenna. The newsof the Duke’s treachery spread northward. Agilulf, King of the Lombards,came hastening down to recapture the city with a mighty army, and hemade Mauritius pay for his treachery with his head. This was in 593. Afew years later Perugia was restored to the Empire, but at the beginningof 700, she, like many other cities of Italy, attempted to shake herselffree from Byzantine rule. It is probable that she did not really succeedin doing so, but this point is at any rate a great crisis in herhistory, for it is the first time that we find her at all tangiblyconnected with the Head of the Christian world—with that power of theChurch which was to prove, throughout her future, alternately hersafeguard and her scourge.

It was about 727 that Leo the Isaurian, Emperor of the East, terrifiedby certain evils in his kingdom which he took to be signs of Divineanger, made his famous decree against the worship of images. This provedof course a most unpopular edict in Italy, and the reigning Pope opposedit by every means in his power. Many of the most powerful cities joinedhim, amongst them Perugia, and Greek rule in Italy, already on the wane,was greatly weakened, but we do not hear of any settled breach with theEmpire for many years to come. Perugia was, as we shall see, merelyadvancing towards her own liberation, but the acquired protection of thePopes proved useful to her in her next great crisis.

In 749 Ratchis, King of the Lombards, laid siege to the city, and herfall seemed inevitable. Then, in the moment of her great need, with theLombard army beating in her very doors, the reigning Pope, S. Zachariasthe Greek, accompanied by all his clergy, and{16} by many of the Romannobles, arrived at her gates, and in words of extraordinary sweetnesspleaded her cause with Ratchis. We do not hear what phrases the old manmay have used to check a man on the verge of a great victory. We onlyhear that the Lombard king knelt down and kissed the feet of the Pope.“Thou hast conquered me,” he said, very simply, and then he withdrewfrom the battle, and S. Zacharias passed into the city, and was receivedwith universal joy by her citizens. And not only did Ratchis abandon thesiege of a town which he so greatly coveted, but, his whole soul beingmoved by this new power, he renounced his kingdom and his crown andretired to the monastery Monte Cassino, where he became a monk, livingthere until he died.

Thus closes another chapter of Perugian history. Within a space of threehundred years, roughly speaking, she had changed the nationality of herrulers four successive times, whilst she herself may be said never tohave changed. Her internal history, her internal government, had allalong continued pretty much on the first lines. Her entire future policyproves this. In all the small wars which follow, and which lead to herfinal supremacy over every other city in Umbria—cities which at theoutset had been as strong as herself, and even stronger, we trace thismasterful and incontestable personality—the personality of the griffinwhich the old Etruscan settlers captured thousands of years before uponthe hill-tops and chose for their city arms.

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In all the intense complication of the times which follow it is almostimpossible to unravel the exact position of individual towns. At onemoment we find Perugia belonging apparently to the Duchy of Spoleto, atanother joined to the Tuscan League, at another putting herself underthe protection of the Pope,{17} whilst all the time nominally belonging tothe Empire. Bonazzi remarks that one result of the perpetual conflictbetween Emperor and Pope was the liberty left to the citizens; inanother place he says that in the scant documents which contain herearly history, “Perugia is always mentioned alone, always managing herown affairs.” The said management dated back in all probability to thatof the very earliest settlement, which was mainly agricultural, andmanaged by chiefs or a Village Council. As the town grew, so likewisedid the numbers of its rulers. In Perugia, as in other places, theoriginal Village Council, which was first held in the public square, wasabandoned as politics grew complicated. The Consuls, ten in number, twoto each Porta or gate, met in council on the steps of the firstCathedral. The finest architectural building in Perugia is notably thePalazzo Pubblico, but long before the construction of this palace therewas another building which served the same purpose close to the Duomo inwhich the different protectors of the city met. We do not propose totrace the form of government here. Suffice it to say that, in Perugia aselsewhere, we find the usual titles ofConsuli andPodestà, then ofthe Heads of City Guilds, thePriori (a very strong power in Perugia),Capitano del Popolo andCapitano della Parte Guelfa; all of whomrecur again and again in her chronicles, playing important parts aspeace-makers or as arbitrators in her turmoils and dissensions.

The historians of Perugia, naturally enough perhaps, tend to speak ofher as of an independent Republic, but this she never was. She had herown rulers, she grew powerful and individual, she finally became a greatcapital, but she was never a free state like Florence or Rome. Somethingin her extraordinary position, something in the character of her people,warlike and tenacious from the first, proved her final force. Great{18}wandering hordes and armies thought twice before they attacked herwalls. Thus she enjoyed long periods of ease, and in her stormy breastshe nurtured the ferocious families which were to prove her strength,but equally her bane in later years.

Being utterly cut off from mercantile expansion or commerce of anordinary sort, she used her concentrated force in subduing neighbouringtowns, and thus extending her dominion over Umbria. Her power soonbecame recognised, and many little towns and hamlets sent envoys topresent acts of submission to the growing power. When these were givenfreely she received them graciously, and when withheld she sometimesshowed a power of rapacity and cruelty which is well nigh inconceivable.

Her history is full of wars against Siena, Gubbio, Arezzo, Città diCastello, Todi, Foligno, Spoleto and Assisi, all chronicled at greatlength by her proud historians. We have collected a few scattered factsrelating to these, which cast some light upon the character of thePerugians, who, as their power strengthened, began to show, not only atyrannous disposition, but an occasional spark of the grimmest humour.Leaving aside other events, such as the encroaching power of the Pope,we may now glance at some of these.

The first act of voluntary submission came from the island of Polvese in1130, and was received with great solemnity in the Piazza di San Lorenzoand in the presence of all the inhabitants of the city. A little latermore than nine hundred of the people of Castiglione del Lago came toplace their land on the shores of Trasimene under the protection ofPerugia. Città di Castello and Gubbio followed suit, and many of thesmaller towns and hamlets. But, if submission was sweet, blows, onesurmises, were well nigh sweeter to{19} the fierce and savage owners ofPerugia, and horrid were the skirmishes—one can scarcely call thembattles—which ensued from time to time when towns resisted or rebelledagainst them.

Assisi and Perugia were ever an eyesore to one another, and theirinhabitants scoured the plain between them like packs of wolves. In oneof these savage little contests tradition tells us that a certainGiovanni di Bernadone, a youth of only twenty summers, was takenprisoner by the Perugians and kept a year in the Campo di Battaglia. ThePalace of the Capitano del Popolo in the Piazza Sopramuro now covers theplace where the youth was chained, and we may look on it withveneration, for he was no other than that sweetest soul of mediævalhistory, St Francis of Assisi.

When Città della Pieve dared to rebel, the action of Perugia was promptand effective. “Most gladly did the youth of Perugia—hot with thedignity of their city, and by no means disposed to forgive those whodespised or disobeyed her—assemble in arms,” says Bartoli. The armythus assembled was instantly sent to the recalcitrant city, but thePievese had scarcely caught sight of it hurrying towards their gates,than they sent theirProcuratore, Peppone d’Alvato, to sue for peaceand beg forgiveness for their misdeeds. This was kindly granted, butPeppone, accompanied by some hundred and thirty Pievese, was forced tocome to Ripa di Grotto and there listen to the reproaches of thePodestà of Perugia, whilst the Bishops of Perugia and of Chiusi, theProvost of S. Mustiola, and theArciprete of Perugia, sitting on highchairs, surrounded by various grandees, were in readiness to enjoy thespectacle. All were dressed in their finest, but we are told that theArciprete of Corciano threw all his neighbours entirely into the shadeby the splendour and the brilliancy of his many-coloured{20} garments.[6]Peppone kneeling at the Bishop’s feet with his hand on the gospels,swore faith and loyalty to the Perugians, and we hear that the Pievesereturned home “rejoicing” at the pardon obtained in this mosthumiliating fashion. This last fact we may take the liberty to doubt,but it is certain that the Perugians enjoyed the whole episodeimmensely, neither did they consider the humiliation of their enemiescomplete. A further punishment had yet to be thought of, and at last abrilliant plan was resolved on. The Piazza of San Lorenzo needed paving,and the Pievese were told that they must provide all the necessarybricks for this purpose, and this “puerile waspishness,” as Bonazzidescribes it, so delighted the hearts of the Perugians that, as welearn, not even the death of the great foe of the Guelph cause,Frederick II., “was able to give them a keener sense of joy.”

Perugia and Foligno had always regarded each other with undisguiseddislike, skirmishing about and exchanging insults wherever they happenedto meet. Once the people of Foligno had come bare-footed, and with asword and knife hung round their necks, to implore pardon of Perugia,but they revolted again, and the Perugians continued to attack and tomolest them. Three times in a single year (1282) their lands weredevastated, and finally the town was taken, and the walls demolished,and imperative orders were issued absolutely forbidding these to berebuilt on the western side. At last Pope Martin IV., amazed anddisgusted by the behaviour of a people to whom he was honestly attached,interfered, but Perugia continued to molest her unhappy neighbour with aquite{21} peculiar animosity, whereupon the Pope, angered beyond measure bytheir disobedience, excommunicated them. “Into such a passion did thePope fall with the people of Perugia,” says Mariotti, “that he issued amost severe excommunication against them.” It was just at the time ofthe Sicilian Vespers. The Perugians, irritated by their sentence ofexcommunication, determined to celebrate a kind of mock vespers on theirown account. Gregorovius says that this is the first instance recordedin history of this strange form of popular demonstration. “They made aPope and Cardinals of straw, and dragged them ignominiously through thecity and up to a hill, where they burned the effigies in crimson robes,saying, as the flames leapt up, “That is such-and-such, a Cardinal; andthis is such-and-such, another.”

A strange scene, truly, in a half-civilised city! But political andreligious causes came between and put an end to these half childishsquabbles. A little later the Pope forgave the Perugians, and theycontinued their evil ways, and persisted in destroying the peace of theUmbrian towns.

Arezzo had the satisfaction of a victory over Perugia in 1335, and indefiance and derision she hanged her Perugian prisoners with a tabby cathung beside them, and a string oflasche dangling from theirbraces.[7] But pranks like these were not allowed to pass unnoticed, andPerugia did not fail to grasp her finest banner with the lion of theGuelph all rampant on a field of gules, and hurry out to subdue herinsolent{22} neighbours. The people of Arezzo were humbled to the dust, butby means too barbaric to be here described.

Thus one by one the cities of Umbria became sufficiently impressed bythis forcible fashion of dealing with insurrection, and they recognisedthat it would be wise, though it might not be pleasant, to swearallegiance to the imperious city. Gualdo next gave up her keys, togetherwith Nocera, but the latter found it impossible to suppress a few oathswhilst signing the documents, and there was a loud wail over the lawsimposed upon them.

says Dante, referring to the subject in the “Paradiso.”

Perugia’s culminating success seems to have been at Torrita in 1358,when the Sienese were defeated, and forty-nine banners brought back tiedto the horses’ tails, and the chains of the Palace of Justice torn awayand hung in triumph at the feet of the Perugian griffin. Even thepowerful Florence accepted Perugia’s help in the Guelph cause, and soearly as 1230 arbitrations had been exchanged for the purpose ofsettling all questions of commerce between the two cities.[8]

All these victories, these repeated successes, tended{23}

PALAZZO BALDESCHI

to increase Perugia’s independence of spirit, and she was very carefulthat no one, not even the Pope, should infringe on her rights, ordispute her authority. Her attitude towards the Church is somewhatdifficult to understand. It seems to have mystified Clement IV., for heexpresses his “dolorous wonder” that the Perugians, who were suchdevoted allies of the Holy See, could sometimes behave so wickedlytowards the clergy. And, curiously enough, the Perugians, lovers{24} ofprocessions, of patron-saints, miracles, and all the rest, could, anddid, make laws to exclude all ecclesiastics from having anything to dowith their charitable institutions or donations to Churches.[9]

We find them protesting both with menaces and oaths against anyusurpation of the clergy, “In the names of Christ, the Virgin, S.Ercolano, and S. Costanzo.” Even the Pope was taught a lesson, for whenJohn XXI. in 1277 asked for somelasche from the Lake of Trasimene,the Perugians called a general council in which it was resolved that thesaidlasche should be sent to His Holiness, but accompanied by thesyndicate in order to show the Pope that the fish was the property ofthe city, and a gift from its citizens merelygiven to him for hisGood Friday dinner!

These somewhat petty hostilities did not, however, materially affect therelations between the Papacy and the citizens of Perugia, and allthrough the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they remained on veryfriendly terms with one another.

We have thought it best to give a general sketch of the growth of thecity, its customs and its wars, before touching on one of the chiefcharacteristics of its history, namely, its close connection with thePapacy. It will, therefore, be necessary to glance back over somecenturies, in order to follow the steps by which the power of the Popesarose in Perugia.

At first Papal authority was purely nominal. To the small towns ofItaly, living each their concentrated and oftentimes tempestuous livesapart, the great Emperors who passed down to Rome in search of{25} crownsfrom the hands of Popes, must have appeared as ghosts, their documentsas unsubstantial as themselves. The fact that one of these, Pepin,conceded large grants of land in Umbria, including Perugia, to a Popewho never came to look at them, must have seemed to the Perugians aslittle beyond a phantom transaction after all. We next hear ofCharlemagne in 800 confirming an act by which Perugia, together with anumber of other towns and territories, was placed under thealtodominio of the Holy See. In 962, Otto I. again confirmed the donation,but the iron hand of Papal power was not felt for many centuries in therising town; and indeed, however deep the designs of the Church may havebeen from the very beginning, they were well concealed, and the firstPopes who visited Perugia did so in the fashion of people starting on asummer excursion, and not at all in the character of conquerors. Theywould come to the city with all their suite of Cardinals and favourites,and take up their abode in the cool and spacious rooms of the Canonica,which, as Bonazzi with imperial pride declares, “became the Vatican ofPerugia.”

Yet it is certain that the policy of the Holy See was deep, and that thegrowing capital of Umbria appeared no plaything in its eyes. Thegeographical position of the city—perched as it is on a hill whichcommands the Tiber and overlooks the two great highways from the EternalCity to the North and to the Eastern Sea—made it a most desirablepossession for the Popes, and it was inevitable that Perugia should,sooner or later, submit to, or come into direct conflict with, the powerof Papal rule. The open acknowledgment of such a situation was merely aquestion of time.

Innocent III., who has been called the founder of the States of theChurch, was the first Pope who came{26} into direct personal contact withthe Perugians. He accepted from them an offer to be theirPadrone, andto exercise temporal power among them. Half playfully, though with whatdeep and powerful designs we may divine, he called the citizens his“vassals,” and to a certain extent they were willing to submit to hisauthority; but in so doing they were careful to wring from their“Padrone” a promise that their rights and privileges should berespected. Thus for the time they steered clear of the danger ofsubjection, continued to govern themselves, and preserved that free andindependent spirit which hitherto, and in spite of every obstacle, hadmarked them as a race. Innocent was beloved by the citizens. He cameamongst them at a time of much civil discord, when the nobles and thepeople were preparing for open strife. “He was a peace-maker,” saysBartoli, “and he kept his eye on all things; and on this city he lookedwith a peculiar partiality.” The Pope was anxious to promote theCrusades, and was on his way to Pisa to try to make a peace between theGenoese and the Venetians, whose quarrels interfered with his schemes,when he fell ill at Perugia, and died there in 1216.[10]

No sooner had he breathed his last than all his Cardinals hurried intothe Canonica to elect his successor, and such was the impatience of thecitizens that they even set a guard over these princes of the Church,and kept them short of food in order to hurry their decision. We are nottherefore surprised to read that the Papal Throne remained vacant forthe space of one day only, and that in consequence of this event thePerugians claim the privilege of having invented the Conclave.

Honorius III. succeeded Innocent, and he attempted, but without success,to heal the ever-widening breach between the nobles and the people. Wehave described{27} something of the wars outside, but Perugia herselfwithin her walls was a veritable wasp’s nest during this period of hersteady rise. Her inhabitants became more restless and unmanageable everyyear. In their perpetual broils the nobles fought beneath their emblemof the Falcon, and thepopolo minuto (common folk), who sided withthem, received the unamiable title ofBeccherini.[11] The two extremesin the social scale joined hands in a perpetual opposition to thepopolo grasso (well-to-do burghers), who were calledRaspanti(raspare, to claw), a name probably suggested by their emblem of theCat.

Honorius in his plan of dealing with the complicated situation canscarcely be described as disinterested; whilst apparently patching uppeace, he really attempted to force an acknowledgment of papal power.His policy however, was fruitless, and the nobles resorted to the usualexpedient of retiring to their country castles, for, as Bonazzi says,they “preferred to tyrannise alone in the silence of their isolatedstrongholds rather than to divide their forces in the capital of apowerful federation.” But the situation threatened to becomeintolerable, and we read that through the years from 1223 to 1228 a“perfect pandemonium reigned in and about the city.” Cardinal Colonnawas sent to try and restore the balance between the rival factions, but,finally, Gregory IX. was forced to come in person, and through hisinfluence the banished nobles were recalled from exile, and a certaindegree of peace restored.

Gregory paid many visits to Perugia, much to the annoyance of theRomans, who expressed their wonder that the little hill-town withnothing but its brown walls,{28} towers, and landscape to recommend it,should be preferred by him to the plains and palaces of the EternalCity. This fact is recorded about the year 1228, when Gregory IX. wasmaking an unusually long stay in his excellent and quiet quarters in theCanonica (at S. Lorenzo). The Romans were well aware, Bartoli says, thatit was because of their ill-behaviour that he had retired into privatelife far away in the Umbrian city, and they even accepted as a judgmenton their evil ways a certain most horrible inundation of the Tiber whichbefell them at that period. Deputies hurried across the land from Romewith supplications to the Pope to return to his people, and Gregorywent, but he quickly returned to Perugia. The fame of S. Francis ofAssisi was then at its height. Gregory felt inquisitive, but notaltogether certain of the truth of the tales which were spread abroadconcerning this wonderful man. He made numerous enquiries and sent hisCardinals to Assisi to gather all the information they were able tocollect about the Saint. But the final manner of the doubting Pope’sconversion is described with such marvellous and touching piety in the“Fioretti” that we have inserted it at length in our description of theplace where it occurred.[12] In the same year and place Gregorycanonized S. Francis, “to the splendour of religion,” says onehistorian. He also canonized S. Dominic and Queen Elizabeth of Hungary,he sent missions into the land of the unfaithful, and gave indulgencesof a year and forty days to all who would give money to the building ofS. Domenico. So we may fairly say that he did not waste his time, butthat he managed to get through a large amount of business during thetime that he spent in Perugia.

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

It is difficult to define the exact mutual relations of{29} Pope and cityin any corner of Italy, but it is certain that Perugia found Papal poweruseful to her in many ways, and that on whatever side she happened tohave a quarrel on hand, she always turned to the Papal See for help andarbitration. In spirit she was always Guelph, fighting under the emblemof the Guelph lion, and full of Guelph interests. Yet, although openlyexercising self-government, almost in the manner of a free republic,under the protection and nominal rule of the popes, she was at the sametime patronised by the emperors. In 1355 we read that her ancientprivileges were confirmed and new ones granted by the Emperor CharlesIV., who seems to have considered it worth his while to gain thefriendship of her citizens.

Up to this period we have only had to deal with pleasant passing visitsof the popes who sojourned in the city for a while. The time came,however, when the noose which Innocent had so lightly cast about theirnecks began to pull and tighten. The Perugians revolted hotly againstthe Popes of Avignon, who, incensed at their rebellion, attempted tocheck it by every means in their power. To understand the painfulstruggles which follow, it is necessary to remember that the end of thefourteenth and the whole of the fifteenth centuries were the mostprosperous period in Perugia’s history. She had grown steadily anduninterruptedly both in power and riches, and in spite of terribleobstacles, ever since the day when the Romans rebuilt her walls morethan fifteen hundred years before. In these two centuries she erectedher public buildings, extended and settled her government, coined money,started her university, settled with her habitual promptitude allsuspicion of rebellion, became one of theTre Communi of Florence,Siena and Perugia, and whilst achieving all these things she continuedto foster the passionate feuds and hopeless enmities between thedifferent{30} factions which we have described above. Having grown strongand prosperous it was natural that she should resent any open attempt ofa foreign power to subject her, and such an attempt came in the middleof the fourteenth century from the Papal See.

In 1367 the Spanish Cardinal Albornoz was busily employed in recoveringthe States of the Church. Perugia was at that time faithful to the Pope,and she received the Cardinal with due honours and gave him valuablehelp, especially in an expedition against Galeotto Malatesta of Rimini.Her goodwill however was of short duration, for the citizens sawthemselves despoiled of Città di Castello and of Assisi during theCardinal’s campaigns, and this they would not brook. They therefore senta strong army at once towards Viterbo, but it was beaten back with heavyloss, and Urban V.’s authority was again firmly rooted at Perugia. Hesent his brother, Cardinal Angelico, Bishop of Albano, as Vicar Generalto represent him in the city. Thus the authority of the popes crept inupon the town, and authority of some kind became every year morenecessary as the voice of the people grew and strengthened and as theexiled nobles quarrelled outside the walls. Papal authority was finallyrepresented in 1375 by an imperious French abbot, known in Perugianannals as Mommaggiore, whose doings and buildings have been described inanother place. (See pp. 184-186.) The yoke that Mommaggiore—“thatFrench Vandal, that most iniquitous Nero,” as the chroniclers callhim,—put upon the neck of Perugia, proved unbearable to every party,and all the different factions for once joined together to break it.Florence and other cities, castles, and fortresses which had “unfurledthe banner of liberty,” joined in the revolt, and in 1375 the abbot wasdriven in a very undignified fashion from the city. A republic was thendeclared{31} and the whole town rejoiced at having broken away from thethraldom of the Popes of Avignon. In vain did Gregory XI. call thepeople of Perugia “sons of iniquity”; in vain did he hurl the mostterrible excommunications against them;[13] the feud between the cityand the Pope was only laid to rest when the latter died. It had lastedlong, and had produced something worse even than the struggle of twostrong powers, for it had served to increase the terrible civil discordwithin the town. With the accession of Urban VI. a treaty was concluded,and Perugia acknowledged his right of dominion. In 1387 Urban arrived inthe city, and as he entered the gates a white dove rested on his hat andrefused to be removed by the servants who ran forward to deliver HisHoliness from the unexpected visitor. It answered the Pope’s touchhowever, and was handed to his chaplain, and everyone accepted the eventas an excellent omen. We will not linger to judge of its excellence, wecan only say that the bird heralded an entirely new chapter in thehistory of the town, which hitherto had developed under generalinfluences and many different hands. Her coming history is that ofsingle influences, of personalities, or, in other words, of despots. Thetime had come when Perugia was to show the fruit of her stern ambitiouscharacter in the individual men whom she had reared. The names ofMichelotti, Braccio Fortebraccio, Piccinino and of the noble families ofOddi and of Baglioni are familiar to all who have merely turned thepages of her history. Perugia, like other towns of Italy, had at the endof the fourteenth century reached a point of internal strife from whichstrong personalities could easily rise up to dispute or to control theexisting{32} government. Why it was exactly that the Popes did not from thefirst forcibly interfere with the turbulent doings of these men, it isdifficult to tell. They were constantly coming to the city, constantlyappealed to by the citizens and nobles, for ever interfering both bymenaces and arms, but it was not till more than a century of blood andtyranny had passed, not till the glory of the town was already on thewane, that the power of the Church came down to crush Perugia like asledge-hammer.

Strangely enough it was a Pope who first gave the city away into thehands of a private person or Protector.

ARMS OF PERUGIA

{33}

CHAPTER II

The Condottieri and the Rise of the Nobles

DEEP gloom closed in upon Perugia towards the end of the fourteenthcentury. The breach between the nobles and the people continued towiden. Sometimes one party was driven out of the city, sometimesanother. Now and again both parties were recalled, and a compact ofpeace arranged by an arbitrary person from outside. But this lastarrangement produced an even more terrible state of affairs, and crimeand bloodshed were the inevitable result. We read of deaths by hundredsand not tens—cruel and indescribable deaths, which make oneshudder—and already in the thick of the strife the names of Oddi and ofBaglioni are stamped upon the records.

One of the strangest points in the history of the city at this time wasthe fashion in which these feuds between the rival factions were met bythem. Whichever{34} party was weakest retired for the time to the country,leaving the city to their rival till time should favour their owncause.[14]

Bonazzi gives an almost extravagant account of the boorish manner of theexiled nobles’ lives. Down in the open country they hunted the abundantwild boar and devoured his flesh when they came home at night. Theyslept in dark and cavernous halls, and were out at dawn across thefields and forests, killing, hunting, fighting, according to the orderof the day. Yet, although they were banished from the walls of theirnative town, they continued to molest and to disturb the citizens, andwhenever the opportunity occurred, in they came again, sometimes openly,sometimes after the manner of thieves. We read of their entering thecity at night across the roofs, robbing the cellars and granaries, andmurdering such citizens as ventured to interfere.

Sometimes the order was reversed: the nobles got possession of the town,and the people were forced into the country. The terrible unrest of sucha state of things may easily be imagined, and, added to these greatevils, or, probably, produced by them, came the devastating plagueswhich ravaged the cities of Italy at the end of the fourteenth century,and the almost equal scourge of mercenary soldiers and private bands offoreign adventurers, who roamed through the rich, ill-governed towns andvillages fighting for one family or{35} another, or else engaged inpillaging upon their own account.[15]

In all these quarrels, in all this turmoil and confusion, whicheverparty happened to be uppermost, the person to appeal to was the Pope,and endless were the messages sent down from Rome. At last, in 1392,both sides seemed to have wearied for the moment of the incessant strife(the nobles at this time were masters of the city, theRaspanti wereaway in exile), and when the Pope, Boniface IX., appeared in person, hewas received with enthusiasm. We hear that thePriori and thetreasurers of the city robed themselves in beautiful new scarletmantles, the “companies” of the different gates danced through thestreets with unmitigated joy, and the people went forth in crowds tomeet him. But the breach between the factions was too wide, thesituation too complicated for a Pope, who arrived merely in thecharacter of a peacemaker, to grapple with successfully. The presence ofBoniface brought no peace, and he retired into the monastery of S.Pietro, which he hastily converted into a fortress, demolishing itstower in his eagerness to secure his own personal safety; and there, ashe nervously wondered what next he had better do, he heard the cries of“Down with theRaspanti!” answered by “Death to the nobles!” borne inupon the breeze.

Finally, in a manner peculiar to the Perugians, they met together incouncil to dictate the action of the person they had called in to actfor them, and it was settled that the Pope should have full power asarbitrator of peace between themselves and theRaspanti. The Pope didexactly as he was asked. He recalled theRaspanti, and they enteredthe city on the 17th{36} October 1393, not merely as a body, but headed bya powerful personality—Biordo Michelotti, one of Perugia’s greatestcitizens, and the first of thecondottieri who ever got rule in thecity.

Exiled in early youth from his native town, Biordo Michelotti had chosenthe career of acondottiere, and roamed through the length and breadthof Italy, fighting the battles of different princes. Some say he hadfought for the French king against the English. He was essentially acaptain of adventure. His manner was kindly, he was brave, honest,frank, and popular among the people wherever he happened to go. Belovedall over Umbria, many of the towns which directly opposed Perugia’styrannical rule had submitted to that of Biordo. All these successes didnot, however, satisfy the man in him, for the ruling ambition of hislife was to get the dominion over his native city, and events were nowcombining to procure for him his heart’s desire. TheRaspanti ralliedround him in their exile, and he became their leader, and the championof their liberty. The nobles, seeing the power of his popularity,offered him bribes to keep out of their way. But Biordo lay low in hisfortress at Deruta, and when the Pope’s offers of peace arrived hehailed them with delight. A month later he entered Perugia at the headof about 2000Raspanti, who had been exiled from their homes foryears. They at once visited the Pope in token of homage and gratitude,and their new lease of power within the city was opened by there-election of the priors, who were chosen half from the burgher factionand half from the nobility. By this means it was hoped that a lastingreconciliation might be made and an evenly balanced governmentestablished. Yet such seemed impossible. Peace endured for the space ofone short month, and at the very first opportunity{37}—on the occasion ofBiordo’s absence from the city—the smouldering fires of party feudsburst out in flames as rampant as before. One of theRaspanti wasmurdered by the nobles, and, just as thePodestà was preparing to passsentence on the assassin, Pandolfo dei Baglioni, “that Perugian Satan,”as Bonazzi calls him, interfered on behalf of the criminal.[16]Whereupon theRaspanti vowed vengeance, assassinated Pandolfo andPellini Baglioni on their own threshold, and murdered sixty of theirclan. The Ranieri, another noble family, with their friends, took refugein the strong Ranieri tower, where they were forced to go without foodfor three days. At last the people dragged them before thePodestà,but as he refused to execute them, the unhappy noblemen were conveyedback to their tower, where they were finally butchered, and their bodiesthrown out of the windows.

Horrified by these fresh atrocities, and again in search of peace, thePope loaded his mules and retired with his Cardinals to Assisi. Thetumults were just subsiding when Biordo Michelotti returned, and thistime he took absolute possession of the city. He met with no sort ofopposition. The ring-leader of the nobles, Pandolfo Baglioni, was dead,and the Pope for the minute encouraged the attempt towards peace. Biordoused his power well, and every year his fame and honours increased. Tothe delight of the Perugians, he succeeded to the command of Sir JohnHawkwood over the Florentine forces, and everywhere he pushed theinterests of the town, wisely concluding a treaty with Gian GaleazzoVisconti, the powerful lord of Milan (1395).

The Pope, in the meantime, began to regret the encouragement he hadgiven to this very popular hero.{38} His jealousy was roused, and he hiredacondottiere for a month, in order to fight the Perugians. Thehostilities, however, ended with the month, and nothing was accomplishedbeyond a demonstration of the Pontiff’s jealousy. But there was someoneelse beside the Pope who witnessed the honours paid to Biordo with ajealous hatred, and this was the Abbot of S. Pietro. “The wicked Abbot,”as the people called him, belonged to the noble family of theGuidalotti, and he probably felt that the power of his family was toomuch overshadowed by Michelotti. He had fresh cause to murmur,therefore, when Biordo married Bertolda Orsini of Rome, and the Lords ofUrbino, Camerino, San Severo, Gubbio, and other towns came up to offerthe happy pair rich presents, and to wish the bride-groom well. Biordo’smarriage was a splendid pageant. The city decked herself magnificentlyto do him honour, and all the people of the country round sent offeringsof grain, and wine, and eggs, and cheese, everything which their smallfarms produced, to show their leader how they loved him.

The Abbot sat at his window, and with no kindly eye he watched the entryof the young bride, close by the monastery walls. Madonna ContessaOrsini came in escorted by the Florentine and Venetian ambassadors. Herdress was made of cloth of gold, she wore a garland of wild asparagusaround her head, and jewels sparkled in her hair. The Abbot noted allthese things, he saw the women of Perugia running out to meet her, hesaw them throw flowers in her path, and then he returned to his cell tobrood upon his horrid plans of vengeance. For he had determined to placethe town once more beneath the sway of the Church, and in this way togain for himself a Cardinal’s hat,{39} as it was probably the Pope himselfwho urged him to the deed.

VIA DELLE STALLE

On Sunday, in the month of March 1398, while the citizens were attendinga sermon at S. Lorenzo, the Abbot arrived on horseback at the Guidalottipalace on Colle Landone, to collect his fellow-conspirators, and sometwenty of them proceeded to Biordo’s house on Porta Sole. Word was sentup to Michelotti that there was important news for him, and he,suspecting nothing, hurried down to meet the Abbot with a courteousgreeting. The Abbot stepped forward, took his hand, and kissed Biordo,at which sign the rest of the conspirators fell upon their victim andstabbed him with their poisoned daggers, hitting him such grievous blowsthat soon he lay weltering in a pool of blood. The conspirators hadfirst intended openly to announce the deed in the piazza, but theircourage failed them{40} and the Abbot merely muttered the news to thepassers-by as he slunk away to S. Pietro with a few companions. Two ofthe braver of the assassins, however, stayed behind and, coming into thepiazza, cried: “We have slain the tyrant.” The citizens, who were atmass, rose with one accord from their devotions, to avenge the death oftheir beloved leader, and leaving the preacher to continue his sermon toan empty church, they hurried to arms. The Abbot meanwhile hastened fromhis monastery at S. Pietro to a still safer refuge at Casalina. As hefled he looked back upon the city whose hero he had murdered, and he sawthe flames and smoke break out from the palace of those same Guidalottihe had hoped to benefit, whilst the news of the death of his old fatherand many of his family in the carnage of that day was brought to him asa sorry consolation for his crime.

Biordo’s blood was gathered together by the citizens and put into alittle silver basin, and above it they placed the banner of Perugia withthe white griffin upon a crimson field; and as one chronicler informsus, a heart of stone must have melted at the sight of it.

Thus perished the first of that extraordinary series of men who tookupon themselves the terrible task of governing single-handed the city ofPerugia. Nearly all died by violence, but the violence done to Biordowas a cruel wrong. A short interval follows, and then the greatest name,perhaps, of all the city’s chronicles comes up upon the scene, namely,that of Braccio Fortebraccio di Montone.

The Perugians suspected the ungracious part that the Pope had played inthe murder of their leader, and the suspicion made them restless anddissatisfied. It was probably owing to this that they fell a prey to thecunning wiles of the Duke of Milan.{41}

Gian Galeazzo had ingratiated himself with the citizens some timepreviously by giving them grain during a time of famine, and he now cameforward to reap the benefit of his charity by getting himself acceptedas Lord of Perugia, which would facilitate his designs on Tuscany.Perugia’s connection with Milan, however, only lasted four years. OnGian Galeazzo’s death, in 1402, the Duchess of Milan made peace withBoniface IX., and restored Bologna, Perugia, and Assisi to the Church.The Perugians submitted to the Pope (they seem not to have beenconsulted in the matter of the donation), but with the strictunderstanding that the exiled nobles should keep at least twenty milesdistant from the city. Boniface agreed to this arrangement. Other popesbefore him had tried to patch up peace between the parties, but he hadnot the courage to attempt such difficult experiments. It remained forBraccio Fortebraccio to tear through the tangled network of Perugianpolitics, to unite within himself the powers of both parties, and as thecity’s despot to raise it to “unprecedented glory.”

Braccio Fortebraccio was born at Montone in 1368. He was the son of OddoFortebraccio, Lord of Montone, and of Jacoma Montemelini, his wife, of anoble Perugian family. During his youth theRaspanti were dominant inthe city, and the boy grew up as an exile. He had only his sword and animmense ambition with which to force his way to future power. It was atthat time the fashion for young noblemen to win fame for themselves bythe life or trade of thecondottieri. Braccio therefore joined thefamous Italian company of S. George, led by Alberigo di Barbiano, whoseadvent crushed the foreign captains of adventure whose lawlessmercenaries had sent terror throughout the rich plains and villages ofItaly during the fourteenth century.{42}

In the tents of Alberigo, Braccio di Montone and Sforza Attendolo[17]learned together the science of warfare. Thence they two went forth tofight the battles of princes, kings, and popes; to create two separatemethods of combat, and to fill all Italy with tales of their greatvalour and their rivalry. Braccio’s ambition grew with his success, andhe soon aspired to acquiring the whole of Italy. His first step towardsthis very large design was the capture of his native city of Perugia.But as he represented the party of the nobles, theRaspanti manfullyresisted any efforts he made to approach them. “It is better even tosubmit to foreign rule than to make peace with the nobles,” they said;and thus it came about that they gave themselves over to Ladislaus, Kingof Naples, and remained for some six years in connection with thekingdom of Naples. When Ladislaus died in 1414, the Perugians wereseized with terror, but the nobles saw their opportunity, and all thingsseemed to favour the scheme of Fortebraccio.

Braccio had joined the service of Pope John XXIII., and by him had beenmade governor of Bologna; but when the Pope was deposed by the Councilof Constance, Braccio’s allegiance ended, and he at once sold theBolognese their liberty, and with the 82,000 florins which he gained bythis transaction he collected a strong army, the exiled nobles flockedto his standard, and they marched at once upon Perugia.

At the news of Braccio’s approach terror and consternation spreadthrough the city. The gateways were built up, and the magistratesforbade anyone to leave the town. But the Perugians, “being the mostwarlike of the people of Italy,” as Sismondi says, could not resist sogrand a chance of fighting, and seeing Braccio’s{43} men clustering aroundthe city’s walls, they jumped down from the ramparts into their midst,and took the soldiers unawares by the suddenness of their attack. Thiswas no real battle, but tumults of the sort were the order of the day.In the dead of night men would rush in panic into the piazza, notknowing what had brought them there, and only conscious of one fact:their desire to make a fierce stand for their liberty. Braccio made afruitless effort to penetrate into the heart of the city, and was drivenback ignominiously. The women threw down stones and boiling water on theassailants, whilst they goaded their own men to fight, crying aloud,“Now is your time to wound the enemy,—at him with your swords yourteeth and nails!”

At last the Perugians called in the help of Carlo Malatesta, Lord ofRimini, and on the 15th of July 1416, the two armies met between theTiber and Sant’ Egideo on the road to Assisi. The greatest generals ofItaly and her best soldiers, says Sismondi, took part in the fiercefighting of that day. The parties closed in deadly conflict; for sevenhours they fought beneath the burning sun, and the heat was increased bythe dense dust that filled the air. “Most dolorous were the sighs whichwere heard to issue from the helmets,” says Fabretti. Braccio was a wisegeneral. He had carefully prepared beforehand countless jars of waterfor the refreshment of his men and horses after each skirmish, and thisin the end was the cause of his victory. The Tiber was flowing fivehundred paces from Malatesta’s soldiers, and they finally could bear theterrible thirst no longer but hurried down to drink. Braccio seized uponthis moment in which to swoop upon the enemy with all his force. The daywas won. Carlo Malatesta and his young nephew Galeazzo Malatesta, weretaken prisoners, and it “was strange to note that the humblest ofBraccio’s soldiers{44} were driving prisoners before them like a herd ofcattle.”[18]

When the Perugians heard of the defeat they immediately sent ambassadorsto offer the government of their city to Braccio. They seem after alltheir previous fighting, to have at once submitted to their fate, whichas it turned out, was an excellent piece of good fortune for them. Theymade preparations to welcome their new despot in a manner worthy of theman. Fine carpets, brocades, and long gold chains, were hung from thepalace windows, flowers lay thick upon the pavement from S. Pietro to S.Lorenzo, whilst elegant gold and silver vases were placed in the windowsof the Palazzo Pubblico. “Evviva Braccio, Signore di Perugia,” theyshouted as he entered, and thus the die was cast.

Anxious to conciliate both parties in the city, Braccio assumed theattitude of Father of his Country and succeeded in inspiring the peoplewith an unusual sense of admiration. Master of all Umbria and Prince ofCapua, many towns acknowledged his dominion, and even Rome was forced toaccept him at one period as her lord. It is, therefore, scarcely to bewondered at that Perugians have never ceased to lament that Braccio diedbefore accomplishing his vast designs for conquering all Italy, for theyfeel that they only just missed the chance of rivalling the glory ofimperial Rome.

There are infinite records concerning the personality of thisextraordinary man.{45}

In the following lines Campano sums up his character:—

One of the most delightful traits of Braccio’s character was an intensehatred of idleness, and city-loafers he nicknamed “I consumatori dellapiazza” (wearers out of the pavement of the public square). Heencouraged the Perugians to play as well as fight, and it was he whorevived the ancient game of the “Battle of the Stones.” His soldierswould often join in the sport, and great was the joy of the citizenswhen the latter were vanquished. Braccio himself was not allowed toplay; he would watch the game from an upper window, and much as he oftendesired to join, his companions prevented him, for it seldom happenedthat less than twelve men lay killed or wounded at the end of the day.This extraordinary and barbarous game deserves an account in any historyof Perugia. It dates back to Roman times, and the credit of playing the“fiercest game in Italy” belonged to Perugia alone, and was believed tobe the reason why her people were “of such commanding mould both inspirit and{46} in body.” Even the children joined during the first twohours, so as to make them strong and warlike from their infancy.

On the Sundays and feast-days of March, April, and May, and into themiddle of June, the citizens met in the Campo di Battaglia, on the roadto Monte Luce, and there formed themselves into two parties, oneremaining on the level of the square, the other just below. Tillnightfall each party fought to drive the other off the ground, andwhichever side managed to gain the middle of the square, carried off thepalm of victory. This wonderful “game” must have looked like a miniaturebattle of a somewhat prehistoric kind; for the combatants were allswathed about the neck, their legs encased in thick leather stockings,stuffed with deer’s hair and protected by greaves; thickly padded roundthe body under their cuirasses, their feet in shoes of linen clothwrapped three times round and stuffed again with the hair of deer. Thewarlike youths and men wore on the top of everything else a helmet whichprojected forward in the shape of a sparrow-hawk’s head, and thusprotected, they were able to watch the stones flying about their headswithout being blinded. They were called the “Armati,” and were led tocombat by “Hurlers” (lanciatori), who wore a lighter apparel, andthrew the stones with extraordinary ability, thereby exciting thecitizens to combat. Old men sat at their windows watching the fight withbreathless interest. If they saw that their side was losing, they wouldsometimes tear off coat and mantle, hurry downstairs, and utterlyregardless of their age, fling themselves into the thick of the fight.“It was a very beautiful spectacle,” exclaims Campano, “to witness thefall, first of this one, then of that, as they were wounded and tumbledto the ground, whilst others, protected by a shield, hurled themselvesupon their{47} adversaries with the weight of their entire bodies, divingin and out among the crowd and dealing blows upon their eyes and faceswith shield and sword and buckler.”

To us it seems strange that at a time when the feuds of centuries laysmouldering and ready to burst out at the smallest provocation, norancour, no ill-will, seemed to be harboured by the relations of the menwho fell dead or wounded in one of these terrible “games.”

Besides encouraging sports, fighting wars, and arranging civil matters,Braccio had a passion for building. He rebuilt the city walls in manyplaces. He added the loggia to the front of the Cathedral, that thecitizens might have a pleasant shelter in the square in which to discussand settle their affairs, and it was he who conceived a rather novel andpractical piece of engineering by bolstering up the houses of the PiazzaSopramuro with strong walls from beneath.[19] The vanity of thePerugians was immensely flattered by all the great doings of their newleader, and their pride knew no bounds when, on the Feast of S.Ercolano, the neighbouring towns sent in their banners withextraordinary pomp in token of their absolute subjection to the city’srule. So delighted indeed were the people, that they at once sent amessage to the Pope to ask him to confirm Braccio’s dominion in Perugia.The request was met in stony silence. The Papal See was jealous ofBraccio Fortebraccio, yet it could not do without him, and so, for thetime, it smothered its wrath and mortification. Martin V. was in need ofBraccio’s sword to help in regaining the lost possessions of the Church,and he sent for him to Florence to sign the necessary agreements. Thevisit was disastrous,{48} for even the Florentine street boys exulted inthe popularity of the hero:

they sang in high, shrill voices below the windows of His Holiness. Theinsult stung and rankled.

“Papa Martino non val un quattrino,” muttered the Pope in a miserablevoice as he paced up and down, complaining to his secretary.

In 1423 Braccio had reached the height of his power, but his ambitionsoared still higher, and at this turn in his life his character seems tohave undergone a change. His vast plans for conquering Italy hadunhinged him, and he became cruel where formerly he had been kind, anddeaf to the counsels of his friends. The simplest and the quietest ofhis days had been spent at Perugia, where his memory still lingers likethe aureole around some conquering saint. But looking out across theplains and mountains of Umbria and towards the Marches which werealready his, Braccio dreamed his mighty dream: that of becoming king ofa united Italy. Aquila alone resisted his power, and in the year 1423,he set out for his last venture. It is said that before he started heleft to the care of his wife, Nicolina da Varano, a little casket, withthe injunction that she should not open it until after his death, or hisreturn home. When Braccio died Nicolina opened the casket and she foundinside a black veil and a sceptre. It was thus the dead man told hiswife that the battle of Aquila decided whether she should be a powerfulqueen or an unhappy widow.

The siege of Aquila lasted for a whole year, and finally, in May 1424, adecisive battle took place in{49} the plain below the town, between Braccioand Caldora, who came to fight him in the name of Martin V. It was agreat fight, and it ended in a tragic manner: Braccio, the beloved ofthe Perugians, got his death-wound at the hands of a Perugian citizen, aRaspante, who had never forgiven the return of the nobles to Perugia.

Caldora tended Braccio during his last hours with every possible care.The doctors hoped to save him, they said that the wounds in his head andthroat were curable, but Braccio wished to die; he was determined not tosurvive his defeat. He refused all nourishment and during the three daysthat he lingered, he never spoke a single word. His dream had faded, andhis courage gone.[20]

In the papal circle there was great rejoicing at the news of Braccio’sdeath, for Martin V. knew well that Umbria was once again his own. ThePope indeed was small-minded enough to harbour his enmity to the verylast. Instead of allowing the fallen captain to be quietly buried, hehad him placed in unconsecrated ground outside the walls of Rome. Thebones of the great Braccio had but a troubled career. They were broughtto Perugia by Niccolò Fortebraccio, and deposited for a while in theChurch of S. Costanzo, where they were met by the municipality and thewhole city and then carried in{50} triumphal procession to the Church of S.Francesco al Prato. All the shops were closed as the bones passed up thestreets, no bells were rung, horses and men were draped in black. Inthis century, by a piece of rather questionable taste the bones of thehero were once more taken from their Church, and may now be stared at,like the bones of the Etruscan ladies, under a bit of glass in themuseum of the University. Under them are written in Latin the followinglines: “O you who pass by, stay and weep. I, born in Perugia, wasreceived in Montone as an exile. Mars subjected to me my native land ofUmbria, and Capua too. Rome obeyed me, the world was the spectator andItaly the stage. But Aquila mocked my fall, wherefore my weeping countrylocked me into this small urn. Ah! Mars raised me up, Mors brought melow. Therefore pass on.”

The news of Braccio’s death caused the utmost consternation in Perugia.If the great captain had saved the town at a critical point, he may alsobe said to have created a situation which was perhaps a still morecritical one for her citizens. Braccio was a noble. With his advent inPerugia the party of the nobles had returned. Terrible things were instore for the city. For a little while, and partly through the effortsof a rather complicated personality, they were postponed, but the timeof terror was at hand.

When Braccio died at Aquila, the Perugians prepared to defend themselvesthey knew not well from what. “Each man,” says Graziani, “furnishedhimself with flour, the ditches and walls were repaired both of the cityand the territory around it, and every one left the open country andtook refuge in fortresses and city palaces.” Two courses lay open tothem, and of the two they selected that which seemed least evil. Theysubmitted themselves once more to the power of the{51} Pope; and on July29th, 1424, the delighted Martin entered Perugia as its acknowledgedlord and ruler.

Like many famous people of that day Martin had studied at the PerugianUniversity, and perhaps he had preserved an affection for the city whichhe had known in his youth. Anyhow, the terms of peace which he concludedwith the citizens were very mild, and as usual, all the privilegesobtained from Innocent III. were preserved. But this time it was throughthenobles that the Pope had been called into the city. The thin endof the wedge was surely and irretrievably driven in, and the power ofthe nobles was as a matter of fact secure. The Pope himself fostered thegrowing power, and amongst others, who on the occasion of his adventreceived rich possessions from him, was Malatesta Baglioni. Martinhanded Spello over to his rule, and thus helped to enrich a family whosemembers were for a period to wrest the power from the Church itself, andto set the town ablaze with crime and bloodshed.

The nobles remained at the head of affairs, but, as we have said, therewas one strong personality—a Perugian citizen, Niccolò Piccinino—whomade a last effort, as Braccio Fortebraccio and Michelotti had donebefore him, to become that strange creation of the day: acondottieredespot.

Niccolò Piccinino was a follower of Braccio di Montone, and his nameremains stamped on the pages of history for successfully leading theBraccian troops to battle, and following out the famous tactics of hismaster. For twenty years Piccinino maintained a constant rivalry withFrancesco Sforza, as Braccio Fortebraccio had done before him withAttendolo Sforza, the ancestor of a line of dukes. The ancestry{52} ofNiccolò is both humble and obscure.[21] Some tell us he was the son of aPerugian butcher, others say, of a peasant from Calisciana near thecity, but it is difficult to get any satisfactory information about him;he was practically little beyond an adventurer. As quite a boy he lefthis home in the Umbrian hills, and started out to seek his fortuneamongst the captains of adventure in the north. Later in life his careerbecame closely linked with that of Fortebraccio, who loved him becauseof his bravery and enthusiasm for the soldier’s career. Nature had notfitted Niccolò for the camp. His health was bad, he was paralysed in oneleg and had to be lifted on to his horse, and because of his miniaturefigure he got the nickname of “Piccinino” (the Tiny One); but the smallbody contained an undaunted spirit, and his tactics in the field werequick and decisive. He never knew when he was beaten, but would turn tostrike again while the enemy were boasting of their victory. On oneoccasion Piccinino crept into a sack and had himself carried across thebattlefield on a man’s shoulder. The enemy (probably Francesco Sforza)imagined him to be at that moment in an opposite direction, and thesudden appearance of Piccinino’s head from out of the sack, his piercingeyes gazing at them over his carrier’s back, caused generalconsternation among the soldiers. Whether this strange manœuvre wonthe day history does not record.

In 1440 Piccinino made a desperate effort to win for himself thegovernment of Perugia, but Papal power was too deeply rooted in thecity, and he had to rest content with the title ofGonfaloniere of theHoly Church—Supreme Magistrate of the City but acting in the Pope’sname.

Perugia had a terrible time under this ecclesiastical and military yoke.Three masters pulled her different{53}

NICCOLÒ PICCININO

ways: Piccinino, the Pope, and the nobles, and each of these threeimposed taxes for their different uses. Piccinino’s is an unsatisfactorycareer. It is that of a man pouring old wine into new bottles; the tradeof thecondottiere ruler was practically dead. The Pope’s tactics wereunsatisfactory also. He tried to conciliate two parties. He encouragedand patronised the nobles and pandered to the populace by encouragingall kinds of extravagant superstition. There is a horrid tale about theburning of a witch at this time; and religious processions assumed suchmonstrous length that the streets could hardly hold them, and we readthat the leading men got entangled in the tail of the procession whichhad not been able to leave the piazza before those who had left it longago returned to the starting-point. Passion-preaching, too, became thefashion, accompanied by grotesque miracle-plays in which a barber fromS. Angelo represented our Saviour; and all those things only served toincrease the morbid passions of the people. In this complicatedsituation the nobles came off best, and their power grew andstrengthened rapidly; but the power was evil. As for the attitudeassumed by the former rulers of the city, it is difficult to judge. Asort of stupor seems to have fallen on the hitherto vigilantPriori. Afeeble effort was made in 1444 to drive out the tormentors by payment ofa large sum of money to mercenary soldiers, but these{54} only took the payand continued to enjoy themselves at the expense of the town.

Hitherto, at least, the nobles had been one party, fighting for onecause. But now that the cause was won, now that their own supremacy hadbeen attained, they began to fight amongst themselves. They hated eachother with a mortal hatred. We no longer hear of fights between noblesand burghers, but of passionate blood-feuds between the noblesthemselves: between the Oddi, Corgna, Staffa, Arciprete, Baglioni, andothers, and next we read of cousins murdering each other for the sake ofmere ambition. The slightest pretext is seized upon for a skirmishbetween the men who, through centuries, had stood together in oppositionto the outside world. A hundred instances are given of their quarrels atthis period. The Della Corgna by way of an example, are one daypreparing to enhance the solemnity of a feast-day by decorating the Arcodei Priori with box and laurel boughs, and are interrupted in theirpious labours by the Degli Oddi, who begin to pull down the decorations.There is some dispute about precedence, in their quarter of thecity—some trifling question as to which family has most right to managethe local festival, a bitter fight ensues, and the whole town is in atumult.

Again on another occasion, one of Ridolfo Baglioni’s bastard sons woundsa certain Naldino da Corciano, a friend of the Degli Oddi, and Naldinohurries off to show his bleeding face to his allies. The Oddi, mad withfury, rush all armed to the piazza, striking at every Baglioni adherentwhom they meet upon their way. The Baglioni are not slow to appear, asready for the fight as anybody. The shops are closed, the citizens armthemselves, a procession wending its way to the Duomo is thrown intoutter disorder, and even the women thrust their heads out of the windowsand{55} throw down jugs and tiles and pitchers into the street below. TheBishop, thePriori, and the learned doctors of the law leave theirhouses and exhort the nobles to lay down their arms; and after a while atruce is obtained, and the hubbub for the time subsides.

Such scenes as these were of almost daily occurrence in the city, and itwas in vain that the Pope, both by foul means and by fair, attempted tocalm the frantic passions of the rivals.[22] It was in vain that S.Bernardino, carrying his crucifix before him, came to preach ofbrotherly love and unity, in vain the Blessed Colomba uttered mysteriouswarnings. It was too late either for Pope or Saint to check so strong aflood as the ambition of men like the Oddi and the Baglioni. All overItaly at this period the character of individual families had grown toostrong for outer influences to crush it, and the heads of the Guelphfamilies were everywhere attempting to form themselves into rulingprinces. In the case of this struggle at Perugia the most successful ofthe combatants were the Oddi and the Baglioni.{56} The struggle betweenthem was a struggle unto death. Now one was driven from the city gates,and now another; but finally, in 1488, the Oddi were ousted altogether,and from that minute until the time when the great Farnese Pope camedown with guns and stones and every implement of war as well as curses,to quell them, the members of the Baglioni family became the dominantfaction of the city. They left their country houses for ever. They fixedtheir mighty eyries on the south side of the city, about where themodern Prefettura stands to-day; from thence they dominated all thetown, and there they lived their wild ill-regulated lives, mingling themost exquisite luxury with cruel vice. They were a splendid and abeautiful race of men, and Italy rang with their great names, but theirrule was horrible.

“As I do not wish to swerve from the pure truth,” says Matarazzo, whohimself adored them, “I say that from the day the Oddi were expelled ourcity went from bad to worse. All the young men followed the trade ofarms. Their lives were disorderly; and every day divers excesses weredivulged, and the city had lost all reason and justice. Every manadministered right unto himself,propriâ autoritate et manu regiâ.Meanwhile the Pope sent many legates, in order that the city might bebrought to order; but all who came returned in dread of being hewn inpieces; for they threatened to throw some from the windows of thepalace, so that no cardinal or other legate durst approach Perugia,unless he were a friend of the Baglioni. And the city was brought tosuch misery that the most wrongous men were most prized; and those whohad slain two or three men walked as they listed through the palace, andwent with sword or poniard to speak to the podestà and othermagistrates. Moreover, every man of worth was downtrodden by{57}braviwhom the nobles favoured; nor could a citizen call his property his own.The nobles robbed first one and then another of their goods and land.All offices were sold or else suppressed; and taxes and extortions wereso grievous that every one cried out. And if a man were in prison forhis head, he had no reason to fear death, provided he had some interestwith a noble.”

PALAZZO PUBBLICO

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CHAPTER III

The Baglioni. Paul III. and last years of the City

SO after centuries of steady struggle fate had at last decreed that thenobles should have their way. Because the way of the Baglioni is themost picturesque point in all the annals of Perugia, because it wascrowned by one of the most horrible domestic tragedies of Italianhistory, and because, moreover, it happens to have been so admirably andso vividly recorded, we are sometimes inclined to regard it as the mostimportant fact about the town. We must, however, remember that it wasonly one of the infinite points which make the city’s history, and thatthe rule of the Baglioni covers a period of not more than fifty years.

By a rare coincidence it happened that exactly at this period,i.e.,during the ascendency of the Baglioni, there was living in the city ofPerugia a scholar by name Matarazzo or Maturanzio.[23] This scholar tookupon himself to record day by day the extraordinary exploits of a familyin whose good looks and deeds of violence, their jousts and subterfuges,he may be truly{59} said not only to have delighted but to have revelled.To understand the Baglioni and the fashion in which they were regardedby the men of their day: terror, hatred, fear, and a cringing admirationbeing pretty well mixed, one must study the chronicles of Matarazzo inthe original.[24] But as it would be impossible, and even impertinentfor us to try and retell the tale of this tragic history in new Englishwords, we have quoted at length the words of one who studied itfaithfully and recorded it with a strange vibrating echo of the originallanguage.[25] We have merely inserted here and there a few notes anddetails which seemed to add to the narrative.

Matarazzo was not alone in his admiration for the Baglioni. He tells usthat whenever the “magnificent Guido,” his son Astorre, or his nephewGianpaolo walked in the piazza every citizen paused at his work toadmire them, and if perchance a stranger passed through Perugia he wascertain to make every effort to see them. The soldiers would hurry fromtheir tents to see Gianpaolo go by, and anyone walking by this noble’sside seemed dwarfed and insignificant by reason of his great stature andhis noble form. Gismondo, another of Guide’s sons, was universallyadmired for his splendid horsemanship. He would make his horse leap intothe air, while he sat straight and square in the saddle, not stirringhand or foot. The citizens looked on marvelling at these feats of skilland daring. Gismondo was slim, and walked with the lightness of a cat,so that no man in Perugia, however quick of hearing, knew when he wascoming. The richest and perhaps the handsomest of the Baglioni familywas young Grifonetto Baglioni, whose beauty Matarazzo compares toGanymede. He was the son of Grifone and Atalanta Baglioni, and nephew toGuido and Ridolfo. His father had been stabbed at Ponte Ricciolo in1477, and he lived with his young mother in one of the most beautifulhouses in Perugia. This palace had been commenced by Malatesta Baglioniand finished by Braccio Baglioni, who, because of the court of learnedmen he gathered round him, and the splendid festivals with which hehonoured the lovely ladies of the city, was called “Lorenzo il Magnificodi Perugia.” The palace was entered by a{62} large and richly-ornamentedhall, hung with beautiful pictures. At the opposite end of the room wasa painting of a woman of most venerable and majestic bearing, and overher head the wordPerusia. This grave and queenly lady commanded aview of all the celebrated men of the Umbrian city, for on one side ofthe wall were portraits of the famous captains of adventure, and on theother those of the most learned of the doctors and scholars, with theirnames and a description of their mighty deeds written in full belowthem. Grifonetto lived in great magnificence. “He kept numbers ofhorses, Barbary steeds, to run in the races, jesters and otherproperties pertaining to a gentleman. He even kept a lion; and all whowent to the house compared it to a king’s court.”

Perugia, it seems, was turned into a veritable garden of loveliness onthis occasion. Rich velvets, brocades, and tapestries hung from thepalace windows, their gorgeous colours mingled with long trails of ivy,with many shrubs and the branches of blossoming trees, which also filledthe streets. Colossal arches spanned the roads at the different gatesinto the city. All vied together to erect the finest arch; and one washung all over with tapestries showing the military exploits of the youngAstorre. As the Roman bride passed in, the ladies of Perugia went tomeet her, offering her rich presents.{64} Some were dressed in cloth ofgold and silver, others in silk and velvet, and many of them were lovelyto behold. But Lavinia Colonna excelled them all by the glory of herbroidered gown, and by the pearls and jewels twisted in her hair.Simonetto Baglioni drove round the city in a triumphal car, and as hewent he cast great quantities of sugared dainties to the crowd, thustrying, by every means in his power, to add to the merriment of themarriage-day, and to show that love and comradeship united the Baglionifamily.

But down in the Borgo S. Angelo men were silent and morose, for theyhated these tyrants of Perugia, and held aloof from all rejoicings. Theyhad noted strange auguries of late, and a whisper went round that evilwas impending. On the first night of the festivities a terrible stormarose, scattering the decorations in the whirlwind. It was an awfulnight, and the young Roman bride shuddered, as above the din of thestorm, she heard the sinister roars of the Baglioni lions.[27] Laviniaand Astorre were lodged in the palace of their traitorous cousinGrifonetto, and neither dreamt of the treachery that was so near athand.

Gianpaolo is the last member of the Baglioni brood who succeeded inruling over his native city, maintaining the despotic traditions of hispredecessors by a system of unconscionable brutality. The personality ofthis tyrant is strongly brought forward in Italian histories. Frollieregives the following account of the fascination of the outward man:

But there was a very different side to this in the character ofGianpaolo, and we hear that on one occasion

Gianpaolo was also a good diplomatist, as cautious as he was cruel, andone of the most striking pictures in Perugian history is that of hisreception of Julius II. in 1506, on which occasion the Pope came tovisit the tyrant in person. The Baglioni was perfectly well aware thatJulius had come for the purpose of re-establishing papal dominion in thecity; but he was too cautious to shove His Holiness over a wall which hewas building at the time, and thus to counterfeit the papal plans andset all Italy ablaze with admiration at the audacity of his action:

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Thus the Baglioni practically killed themselves—stamped out their ownpower through their own passions. It remained for the Church to crush ifpossible the spirit of liberty and of self-government in the people ofPerugia. It is as though a mighty wheel spun round and we next find thecity wholly and entirely in the clutches of Rome.

When the last strong member of the terrible brood, Ridolfo Baglioni,forced his way back into Perugia with the evident intention of rulingthere, he seems to have ignored the fact that he had something morepowerful to face than the opposition of the people. Ridolfo set fire tothe people’s palace, but he went much further, he assassinated thePope’s Legate. This outrage gave the final push to Rome, who had sooften and so impotently interfered before, and Paul Farnese, thereigning Pope, listened, we hear, with the profoundest displeasure tothe account of this barefaced murder. He at once took the high hand. Hesent troops from Rome to drive out Ridolfo, who retired before them toseek a better fortune elsewhere. He then had the walls of Spello,Bettona, Bastia, and other strongholds of Ridolfo Baglioni demolished,and finally, in order to make his policy more permanent and decisive,the great Farnese Pope arrived in person at Perugia.

Paul’s arrival is one of the most impressive points in the annals of thetown. The rule of the Baglioni had been so powerful and so picturesquethat in tracing it one is inclined to ignore the undercurrent of affairsin the city. As a matter of fact the old order of rule had not reallydied out under that of the nobles, and in the description of Paul’sreception we find the familiar names of companies andPriori occurringagain and again with all their followers and titles.{72}

The Perugians, wearied to death by the despotic rule of the nobles,hailed the advent of a much more despotic Pope with blind and excessivejoy. Paul came in triumph, and in triumph he was received. Great archeswere built for him and for his cardinals to pass beneath, and since thetown had not sufficient money to spend on his reception they even melteddown a beautiful silver ship belonging to the city plate chest. It wason the last day of August 1535, and at about midnight, that “His BlessedHoliness” arrived at the gates with fourteen cardinals and somecompanies of 600 or 700 horse and 700 infantry. The Pope rode up onhorseback, dressed in scarlet. Drums and tambours heralded his approach.The cardinals rode by two and two. On either side of His Holiness rodehis two nephews: the Cardinals Alexander Farnese and Guido AscanioSforza. ThePriori, all in new and gorgeous robes, preceded by theHoly Eucharist, came out to meet him, and through their ambassador ornunzio they presented to His Holiness a silver basin containing thekeys of the city. Then a learned doctor of the University delivered “ashort but elegant address,” to which the Pope listened attentively, andfor that night the Pope turned in to sleep in the monastery of S.Pietro. The following day he entered the city with extraordinary pompand took up his abode in the Palazzo Pubblico, where thePriori hadvacated their own rooms in order to give him proper space; and thitherall the professors and all the members of the city guilds andconfraternities arrived that afternoon to kiss his foot.

Paul’s first visit to Perugia may be called a triumphal progress ratherthan anything else. He gave great gifts of grain to the city, and heconferred countless benefits upon its churches and its clergy. But hecame to rule, and not to pamper or caress. For{73} a time all went well.The convents and the monasteries grew fat and prosperous, the Baglioniwere away, and the people apparently at peace; but storms were brewing.After three years of passive submission Perugia found cause to revoltagainst her new ruler as she had done against her old. In 1538 Paul III.sent out his decree for raising the price of salt by one half in all thepontifical states, and the Perugians revolted at once against animposition which they had good reason to feel unjust.[39]

Revolution was declared. Alfano Alfani, the chief of the magistrates,tried to calm the fury of his countrymen, and at first only humbleentreaties were sent down to Rome imploring Paul III. to remove a tax soodious to the people. But the Pope was too much in need of money tolisten to these prayers. His only answer was an excommunication, whichpunishment was not unfamiliar to the people of Perugia. During the monthof March 1539 the city lay under an interdict, no masses were said, nosacraments given, and the churches seemed as the monuments of a peoplelong since dead. Every day the murmurings of the Perugians grew andstrengthened, and finally they took the high-handed measure of arrangingmatters for themselves. They elected twenty-five citizens who werecalled “the twenty-five defenders of justice in the city of Perugia,”and before many days were out the “twenty-five” had obtained unlimitedpower. They exercised an independent and undisputed authority and pushedthepriori entirely to one side. Their endeavours to protect theirliberty and resist the Pope’s authority soon roused his anger. TheFarnese was not a person to be trifled{74} with, and this barefacedrebellion of the little Umbrian city had to be crushed by prompt andpowerful means; so the Pope sent his son, Pier Luigi Farnese, at thehead of 10,000 Italians and 3000 Spaniards to meet the rulers in thefield.

A strange piece of history follows. The Perugians veer round utterly andcall in as their leader Ridolfo Baglioni to help them against a Pope,whom but three short years ago they had welcomed as their bestbenefactor.

Ridolfo went forth to fight against the Papal troops with a mightyflourish of trumpets, but we only hear faint rumours of a skirmish nearPonte S. Giovanni where one or two men were killed, and a few moretumbled off their chargers. The whole account reads like a farce, andyet we know that men and women regarded it with deadly earnest at thetime. The city was all unhinged. An extraordinary religious phase whichhad nothing to do with the Church came over her. The large crucifixwhich is still to be seen in S. Lorenzo, was placed above the mainentrance to the Duomo, and here the people came to pray and tell theirbeads with an unwonted fervour. Continual processions wound their slowway up from S. Domenico to the Cathedral square, and we hear that thecries for mercy were deafening throughout the city.

On a dark night, by the flickering light of many torches, Maria Podiano,the Chancellor of the Commune, delivered a touching oration, and in thesight of all the citizens he placed the city keys at the foot of thegreat crucifix on the outside of the Cathedral—Christ was to be theirdefender, Christ their leader, to fight against a Pope![40]

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But it was impossible that Perugia should be able to stand against suchan army as that of Paul III., and Ridolfo Baglioni was the first to seethat his side must lose. With less loyalty than might have been expectedfrom this would-be despot of Perugia, he edged towards peace, andfinally, on the 3rd June 1540, peace was concluded between Pier LuigiFarnese and Ridolfo Baglioni. Thus it happened that once again Perugiawas cast under the shadow of Pontifical Rome. Neighbouring towns hadabandoned her at the moment when she wrestled for her liberty; RidolfoBaglioni had given her but a half-hearted help, and the Perugians weredriven to confess that the only course which now lay open to them was anapology to the Pope. Twenty-five ambassadors were therefore sent toRome. Dressed in long black robes with halters round their necks, theunhappy Perugian envoys crouched in the portico of S. Peter’s awaitingtheir absolution.

Pardon was obtained, but at a heavy price. The ambassadors returned homebearing the news that Paul had forgiven the city; but the titles ofPreservers of Ecclesiastical Obedience, borne by the Pope’s magistrates,warned Perugia quite sufficiently that her old forms of government werewiped away for ever. A few days later and the foundations of Paul III.’sfortress were laid on the site of the razed palaces of the Baglioni, andthe citizens were compelled to lend their help in the erection of thiscolossal stronghold which was to prove their bane for centuries tofollow. On its inner walls it bore the following inscription, whichfully indicated the feelings and intentions of the{76} indomitable Farnese:Ad coercendam Perusinorum Audaciam.[41]

Writhing beneath the yoke of priests, the Perugians soon regretted eventhe rule of the Baglioni: “Help me if you can,” Malatesta Baglioni hadcried as he lay dying at Bettona in 1531, “for after my death you willbe made to draw the cart like oxen”; and Frolliere, chronicling thesewords, remarks: “This has been fulfilled to the last letter, for allhave borne not only the yoke but the goad.”[42]

In the same year (1540) as that in which Paul III. laid the foundationsof his famous fortress, a society, which proved of invaluable service infurthering the work and wishes of the Papacy, sprang forth into vigorouslife, and gradually the chief power in Perugia fell into the hands ofthe Jesuits. These agents of the Pope proceeded to convert the citywholesale by means of religious ceremonies, general confessions,preachings in every square, and in all the corners of the streets, andcolossal processions, headed by missionaries wearing crowns of thornsand bearing enormous crosses. Industries died out, poverty, famine, andpestilence decimated the city, and in 1728, from a petition presented toClement X., it appears that Perugia was reduced to such a state ofwretchedness as to bring tears to the eyes of those who remembered herformer prosperity.

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The final history of Perugia, down to the present day, may be compressedinto a very few lines. Up to the{77}

FORTRESS OF PAUL III. SHOWING THE UPPER PART NOW OCCUPIEDBY THE PREFETTURA, ETC., AND THE LOWER WING WHICH COVERED THE SITE OFTHE PRESENT PIAZZA D’ARMI
(From a water-colour sketch now in the possession of Madame Brufani atPerugia.)

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end of the last century, she was practically ruled by the Popes, and wasa city of the Papal States. Her immense convents and churches werefilled with monks and nuns. In 1549, Julius III. restored to her some ofher ancient privileges of which Paul had deprived her, and in some sortshe regained her old forms of government, but she could never again becalled by her historians an independent State. In 1797, during thegeneral upheaval of Europe which followed the revolution in France, sheunderwent a quite new phase, and became a French Prefecture under thetitle ofDepartimento del Trasimeno. General la Valette levied tributefrom the citizens, who were further harassed by the sudden break up ofthe Roman Republic and an Austrian occupation. After the Battle ofMarengo, in 1800, Perugia ceased to be Pontifical, and in 1809 she wasformally annexed to the French Empire, and made a canton of Spoletounder a sub-prefect. By Napoleon’s orders the convents of both sexes andof all orders were suppressed, the bishops and prelates were sent toRome in carriage loads, and the poor monks and nuns were unfrocked andliterally carted through the streets to their homes. When a turn came inthe fortunes of the empire, Perugia became the victim of another change,and with the partial introduction of the papal sway, the monks and nunsreturned to their convents.

In spite of its tyrannies, the Napoleonic occupation had given thePerugians a taste for better things than a papal despotism, and theynever again found rest in the care of the Pope. They fretted and chafedunder the Pope’s people; the Pope’s fortress became a veritable eye-soreto them, the daily sight of its walls burned into their hearts likered-hot nails, and whenever they could they pulled a part of it down.

At last, in 1859, they rose in open rebellion, and Papal troops weresent by Pius IX. to besiege the{80} town. Some 2000 of the Swiss Guard, ledby Colonel Schmid, arrived from Rome to quell the insurrection. Bonazzigives a vivid account of the atrocities these men committed in the city.They killed all whom they laid hands on in their raids as they passedthrough the streets, crying aloud as they went that “their master thePope had given them orders that none should be spared.” S. Pietro wasforced, and, notwithstanding the protests of the Abbot and his monks,its vestments were torn to threads, gold and silver ornaments carriedaway, and not even the archives with their wealth of long accumulatedmissals escaped the vandalism of the papal troops. (See p.162.)

In 1860 the Swiss were finally dislodged by Victor Emanuel’s envoy,General Manfredo Fanti; and, unarmed and closely guarded by a doublefile of the King’s soldiers, the last representatives of papal powerwere driven from the fortress of Paul III., and having passed a night inthe cathedral, they were ousted for ever from the precincts of Perugia.Paul III.’s fortress had now been entirely pulled down by an infinitenumber of willing hands, and the present great buildings of thePrefettura, which represents the modern government of a prosperous town,took their place on the former site of the Baglioni palaces.

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

With the loss of Perugia’s independent existence in 1540 the light ofromance was lost to her history. But from that minute, and in spite ofall her anguish and humiliation, she learned the final lesson of how tolive at peace within herself, and be at peace with all her neighbours.This lesson she had never learned through all her battlings in the past.She had risen fighting, and fighting she had flourished. It would beinaccurate to say that fighting she fell.{81}

Perugia never fell. She was merely caught and tamed. Anyone familiarwith the cities of Umbria will at once recognise in this, their head,something forcible, strong, grand, and enduring, which neither nobles,emperors, nor popes were able to beat out of her; something which haskept her what she was at the beginning: Perugia, the city of plenty, andfitted her to be what she is now: Perugia the capital of Umbria; asgrand in her unity with her great mother, as she was powerful in herstrife.{82}

CHAPTER IV

The City of Perugia

HAVING glanced thus rapidly over the history of Perugia we turn withfresh interest to examine the city itself, and to trace through whatremains of its earliest walls and houses, the character of those samefascinating, if pugnacious persons, who built those walls, fought overthem, lived and died within them.

Perugia is an excellent mirror of history, combining on its surface notonly a reflection of the immortal past but of a prosperous present, andwith the exception of ancient Roman influences, which, for some obscurereason, have almost entirely vanished, it would be difficult to find anest of man more perfect or unchanged in all its parts. Battered andabused by warfare and by weather the stones of the middle ages may beand are, but they have not been destroyed, and there is something grandand clean in the modern buildings which confirms, rather than destroys,the æsthetic charm and splendour of the old.

Perugia is very distinctly the living capital of the province. Aftertravelling through Umbria and studying one by one the little dreamyold-world cities—each perched upon its separate hillside, which seem tohave fallen asleep long centuries ago, letting the silence of{83}

PERUGIA FROM THE ROAD TO THE CAMPO SANTO

the grass close in on their paved streets, as the need ofself-protection vanished—one returns to Perugia and recognises thatshe, at least, has never died. She is often very silent, very brown andgrim; she has her dreams, but the hope in her: the desire for rule andpower, has never really vanished. The most remarkable change about thetown, if we are to take what we read of her history for certain fact, isthe change in her{84} people. The inhabitants of Perugia, in every class,are unmistakably gentle and amiable, both in mind and manner. They arecourteous to strangers, kind, helpful and calm. Even the street boys askone for stamps instead of pennies. In their leisure they are gay, and intheir work persistent. They are never frantic or demonstrative. As onesits at one’s window on warm spring nights, one almost wishes the peoplein the street would either fight or sing, but they do neither. They taketheir pleasures calmly, and hang upon their town walls by the hour,gazing out upon a view they love. Perhaps in their inmost hearts theyare counting the numberless little cities, all of which their fatherswon for them in battles of the past. The fact of their supremacy maymake them thrill, but there is nothing to mark their triumph in theirfaces.

This is no place in which to discuss the rapid change of personality inthe Perugians. We note it as a fact, and pass to a description of thetown itself, which certainly contains abundant marks of that same“warlike” character which time has washed away from the minds of itsinhabitants.

The city is built, as we have shown in our first chapter, on one of thelow hills formed after thousands of years by the silting up of therefuse brought down by the Tiber, and not, as one naturally at firstimagines, on a spur of the actual Apennines which are divided from herby the river. Much of the power of the town in the past may be traced toher extraordinary topographical position. Perugia stands 1705 feet abovethe level of the sea, and 1200 above that of the Tiber. She standsperfectly alone at the extreme edge of a long spine of hill, and shecommands the Tiber and the two great roads to Rome.[43] But looked atfrom{85} a merely picturesque point of view, few towns can boast of a morepowerful charm. Perugia, if one ignores her history, is not so much atown as an eccentric freak of nature. All the winds and airs of heavenplay and rush around her walls in summer and in winter. The sun beatsdown upon her roofs; one seems to see more stars at night, above herramparts, than one sees in any other town one knows of. All Umbria isspread like a great pageant at her feet, and the pageant is never oneday or one hour like the other. Even in a downpour, even in a tempestthe great view fascinates. In spring the land is green with corn and oaktrees, and pink with the pink of sainfoin flowers. In winter it seemssmaller, nearer; brown and gold, and very grand at sundown. On cleardays one can easily trace a whole circle of Umbrian cities from theUmbrian capital. To the east Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Montefalco, andTrevi. The hill above Bettona hides the town of Spoleto, but its ilexwoods and its convent of Monte Luco are distinct enough. To the southTodi and Deruta stand out clear upon their hillsides; and to the eastthe home of Perugino, Città della Pieve, rises half hidden in itsoakwoods. Early in the mornings you will see the mists lift slowly fromthe Tiber; at night the moon will glisten on its waters, drawing yourfancy down to Rome. Strange lights shine upon the clouds behind theridge which covers Trasimene, and to the north the brown hills rise andswell, fold upon fold, to meet the Apennines. In autumn and in winterthe{86} basin of the old Umbrian lake will often fill for days with mists,but the Umbrian towns and hamlets rise like the birds above them, andone may live in one of these in splendid sunshine, whilst looking downupon a sea of fog which darkens all the people of the plain.

The inhabitants of Perugia swear by the healthy nature of their air, andindeed, were it not for the winds, the most fragile constitution wouldprobably flourish in the high hill city. But it must be confessed thatthere come days when man and horse quiver like dead leaves before thetempest, and when the very houses seem to rock. Indeed, it would bealmost impossible to exaggerate the arctic power of a Perugianwhirlwind. Yet the average temperature is mild, and myrtles grow to thesize of considerable trees in the villa gardens round the town.

To fully understand the city of Perugia, the marvellous fashion of itsbuilding, and the way in which its houses have become a part of thelandscape and seem to creep about and cling to the unsteady crumblingsoil, one should pass out into the country through one of its gates,and, rambling round the roads and lanes which wind beneath its walls,look ever up and back again towards the town. In this way only is itpossible to understand what man can do with Nature, and how, with thecenturies, Nature can gather to herself man’s handiwork and make of it aportion for herself. Birds and beasts have built in this same fashion,but rarely except in Umbria have men.

“The unstable quality of the soil on which Perugia is built,” writesMariotti, “has made strong walls and very costly buildings a necessity,”and he goes on to point out the different and expensive ways in whichthe town has been bolstered up with solid masonry. The Etruscans werethe first to recognise this necessity. They may have been a peaceful anda rather bourgeois{87} set of human beings, differing in all ways fromtheir combative successors, but they understood the science of building,and their walls, which encompassed only about one-third of the spacecovered by the mediæval town, remain a monument of splendid solidmasonry wherever they can be traced.

ETRUSCAN ARCH. PORTA EBURNEA

The Etruscan walls are a marked feature of some Umbrian cities, andalthough it is rather the fashion to{88} dispute their authenticity inPerugia, the bits which remain of them there are probably quite genuine.They have, however, become such a part of the mediæval and the moderntown, and are often so embedded in later buildings, that without closestudy it is difficult to trace them; we have therefore marked theircourse in red on the map of the town.

Five of the present gates of the town, namely,Porta Eburnea,PortaSusanna,Porta Augusta,Porta Mandola, andPorta Marzia are thegenuine old gates of the Etruscan town, and although the Romans alteredthem a little, enlarging them from below, a great part of their masonryis the work of the Etruscans, and from three to four thousand years old.Of these gates, thePorta Augusta is familiar to every one, as it isone of the most remarkable and impressive features of the town. Rome andthe Renaissance have combined to give it a fantastic and a fascinatingappearance, even as these same influences have made a miniature museumof the now disusedPorta Marzia. Strangely enough the work of theEtruscan masons is far better preserved than any which followed them,and the great blocks of travertine neatly placed (as some supposewithout mortar) on one another, are easily distinguishable from thosebuilt above and below them. Perugia always felt a certain respect forher oldest walls, and even in the fifteenth century, when she was in herprime, and bristling with new towers and churches, the work of the deadpeople was respected. In 1475 we read that a law was passed for thepreservation of the Etruscan walls, as “they were very marvellous, andworthy to be preserved into all eternity.”

Beyond the city walls nothing remains of the Etruscans at Perugia,except what is found in their tombs. That the town was rich in templesand other beauties we may gather, but these, together with the houses,were{89}

MEDIÆVAL STAIRCASE IN THE VIA BARTOLO

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destroyed when Augustus took the town in 40B.C., and when her devotedcitizen, Caius Cestius, set fire to his native city, to cover herdisgrace. Of the Roman occupation, which covered a period of manycenturies, no trace remains in Perugia. The present town is therefore amonument of the purest mediæval building crowned by some rare andbeautiful bits of Renaissance architecture.

But before entering into a description of the city, it may be well toinsist once more on the fact already made plain in our history, that ifmen made Perugia, men also marred her.[44] The impatience of man iseverywhere discernible in her streets her palaces and churches, and onlythe latest buildings have their towers and stones intact. The towers ofS. Pietro, S. Domenico, and others have had their tops all truncated bypopes, by nobles, and by people in moments of their fury or theirvengeance. The city was built for warfare and defence, and not forbeauty, luxury and peace. In these comparatively quiet times of ours wego about in foreign towns and look for art, and art alone. We seem toforget that art is but a small affair—a little landmark in the historyof nations. There is an art in Umbria, an art so pure, so sweet, sotender that thinking of it we may easily forget the history of her men,or, if remembering, we seem to dream a dual dream. The art of Perugiawas, maybe, the outcome of her almost fanatical religion, but the warsof her inhabitants have{92} always been her life-blood. The very firstwalls were built for defence, or, as some say, to store the crops, thecorn and hay, in; and the houses of the earliest mediæval town were alsobuilt purely with a view to personal safety and protection. Bonazzigives a curious account of the growth of the city, and the almostfantastic fashion in which its inhabitants hammered its houses together,and then proceeded to live in them. “There were,” he says, describingthe town in about 1100 and 1200, “few monuments or buildings ofimportance up to the sixteenth century. The houses were all on onefloor, the sun barely reached them; some of them were of stone andbricks, but the greater part of mud, clay and straw. Hence incessant andconsiderable fires, increased by the lack of chimneys. And they were soinconveniently arranged that often eight or ten persons slept in asingle room. A motto, a saint, some small sign took the place of ourmodern numbers, and the lamp which burned in front of the many shrinesserved to light the streets at nightfall. There were no flags orpavements then upon the streets, which took their names from thechurches or houses of the nobles which happened to look down upon them;these were narrow and tortuous, simply because they grew without anymethod or premeditation, they were horrible to behold as all the dirtwas thrown into them, and because of the herds of swine which passedalong them, grunting and squeaking as they went.”[45] Bonazzi next goeson to trace the topography of the mediæval town, which was much smallerthan the present one, and lacking in large monuments. There was no Corsoin those days, no Piazza Sopramuro, no Palazzo Pubblico. Where{93} thepresent cathedral now stands there was only the little old church of S.Lorenzo and a big and beautiful tower with a cock on the top of it. Thetowers of Perugia were a most marked feature of her architecture and,indeed, in old writings she is always mentioned asTurrena because ofthem.[46] “About this time,” says Bonazzi, “another great work began inour city, which was continued into the following centuries. The feudallords who came in from their own places in the country to inhabit thetown, brought with them each the tradition of his own strong tower inthe abandoned castle. Great therefore was the competition between themof who should build the highest, and this each noble did, not so muchfor decoration as for a means of defence and of offence, and accordingto the amount of power possessed by himself or by his neighbour.... Inthe shadow of the massive feudal towers,” Bonazzi writes in anotherplace, “like grass which is shaded by giant plants, rose the littlehouses of the poor. The more elegant houses were of terra-cotta (bricks)without plaster or mortar, and their windows were arched in the Romanfashion.[47]{94} After 600 they were roofed with flat tiles in imitation ofthe Lombards.”

The city gates were always closed at nightfall, and some of the streetswere blocked by means of huge iron chains which stretched across theroad, preventing the passage of horse or carts, from one house toanother. One can still see the hooks and holes belonging to thesesomewhat barbaric defences in some of the more solid houses of Perugia;and in the neighbouring town of Spello the chains themselves have beenleft hanging to one of the houses. In 1276 we read that the law ofclosing the city gates was abolished, but a little later on it was againfound necessary to barricade the town at nightfall, and during some ofthe fights between the nobles in 1400 and in 1500 we hear of thedifficulties which one or the other party had to combat in the “chainsacross their path.”

Strange scattered relics of this nest of mediæval man linger and comedown to us even in the nineteenth century. Amongst these are theportedel mortuccio, or doors of the dead. All the best houses had thesedoors alongside of their house-doors, but they are bricked up now andquite disused, and might easily be ignored in passing through thestreets. Theporta del mortuccio is tall, narrow, and pointed at thetop; it is, indeed, just wide enough to pass a coffin through. It seemsthat in very early days, even so far back as the Etruscans, there was asuperstition that through the door where Death had passed, Death mustenter in again. By building a separate door, which was only used by thedead, the spirit of Death passed out with the corpse, the narrow doorwas closely locked behind it, and the safety of the living was secured,as far as the living can secure, from Death. Other charming details ofthe mediæval city are the{95} house doors. They are built of travertine orpietra serena, and have little garlands of flowers and fruit boundwith ribbons, and delicate friezes above them. Some of them have verybeautiful Latin inscriptions, which show a strong religious sentiment.We quote a few of them here:Janua coeli (door of heaven, over achurch);Pulchra janua ubi honesta domus (beautiful the door of thehouse which is honest);A Deo cuncta—a domino omnia (all things fromGod);Ora ut vivas et Deo vives (pray to live and thou shalt live toGod);Prius mori quam fædari (die rather than be disgraced);Inparvis quies (in small things peace);Solicitudo mater divitiarum(carefulness is the mother of riches);Ecce spes I.H.S. mea semper(Christ always my hope).

Over one or two of the doorways in Perugia you will find almostbyzantine bits of tracery with figures of unknown animals—beasts of theApocalypse—carved in grey travertine all round them. One of the veryearliest bits of mediæval building is the fragment of a door of thissort, belonging to the first palace of thePriori, which is now almostburied in the more modern buildings of the sixteenth century. There isanother amusing procession of beasts over a gateway below S. Ercolano.These odd animal friezes were probably first designed for some sort ofclosed market where beasts were sold, and the old Pescheria hasmedallions oflasche on its walls.

As for the ways and manners of the people who inhabited this mediævalcity, Ciatti and other writers supply us with plenty of fantasticinformation:

“Perugia lies beneath the sign of the Lion and of the Virgin,” Ciattisays in his account, which is as usual, unlike the account of anybodyelse, and highly entertaining, “and from this cause it comes that the{96}city is calledLeonina[48] andSanguinia, and the habits of thePerugians are neither luxurious nor effeminate. Like those of whomSiderius writes, they came forth strong in war, they delighted in fish,were humorous in speech, swift in counsel, and loved the law of thePope.... The women,” he continues with a certain monastic indifferenceto female charm, “were not beautiful, although Siderius calls themelegant;[49] the genius of Perugia was ever more inclined to theexercise of arms than the cultivation of beauty, and many famouscaptains have brought fame to this their native city through their bravedeeds. In Tuscany the Sienese have the reputation of being frivolous,the Pisans astute and malicious, the Florentines slow and serious, andthe Perugians ferocious and of a warlike spirit.”

Concerning the clothes and the feasts of this combative race of peoplewho lived for warfare rather than for delight, we hear that they wereaccustomed to wear a great deal of fur, the nobles using pelisses ofmartin and of sable, the poor, sheep or foxes’ skins. The fur tippetsstill worn by the canons of cathedrals in Italian towns in winter areprobably a remnant of these days. For the rest an adaptation of theRoman tunic was perhaps worn by the men, whilst the women kept to thetradition of the Etruscan headgear. “Victuals,”{97} Bonazzi tells us, “wereof a coarse description, more lard and pepper was eaten in those days,than meat and coffee in ours. But at the feasts of the priests andnobles an incredible quantity of exquisite viands was consumed; greatanimals stuffed with dainties were cooked entire, and monstrous pastiesserved at table, from which, when the knife touched them, a living andjovial dwarf jumped out upon the table, unexpected and to the greatdelight of all the company.”

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

But from the Age of Darkness men awoke both in their manners and intheir buildings. Perugia of the Middle Ages shook the sleep from off herheavy eyelids, and with that passionate impulse towards Light which wasperhaps the secret of the Renaissance, she too strove toward theBeautiful, and in a hurried, fevered fashion, she too decked herselfwith fairer things than castle towers and hovels. The fourteenth and thefifteenth centuries were, as we know, the Age of Gold in later art, andPerugia, in spite of all her tumults, in spite of her feuds, and evenher passionate religious abstinences, woke with the waking world. Mostof her churches, and most of those monuments which mark her as a pointfor travellers, date from that period. “And at that time,” says thechronicler Fabretti, “there was so great a building going on indifferent parts of the city that neither mortar nor stones nor masonscould have been procured even for money, unless a number of Lombards hadcome in to build. And they were building the palace of thePriori(Palazzo Pubblico), they were building S. Lorenzo, Santa Maria deiServi, S. Domenico, S. Francesco, the houses of Messer Raniero ... thetower of the Palazzo, and numerous other houses of private citizens allat that same time.”

But it was not merely a love of beauty which{98} prompted the Perugians tothis sudden departure in the way of architecture; the spirit of thegreat saint of Umbria had much to do with it. In Perugian chronicles andhistories we find a strange silence about the influence of S. Francis ona city which was only separated by some fourteen miles from Assisi. Yetit is not possible that so strong a force as that of this man’spreaching could have been kept outside the walls of the neighbour town,and Ciatti declares that at one time nearly a third part of theinhabitants of Perugia took the Franciscan habit. In 1500 and 1600 therewere more than fifty convents in Perugia, many of which had sixty toeighty inhabitants, but that was during the rule of the popes. Of thegreat period of building in the fourteenth century, which included manyfine churches and convents, the buildings of the people and not of thepriests remain intact. The splendid Palazzo Pubblico and Pisano’sfountain in the square belong to this period. But because the work ofthe Renaissance is so conspicuous and charming we have described it inanother place, and in our description of the town have lingered ratherover the fragments of the Etruscan and the mediæval city.

As it would be impossible in this small book to give anything beyond acursory sketch of all the different buildings of the town, we havedecided to deal with the details of some of the principal ones, leavingthe rest for the discovery of those whose leisure and intelligence willalways make such exploration a delight. There is no lack of excellentguide-books to Perugia. Of the fuller and rarer ones we would mentionthose of Siepi and Orsini and the more modern one of Count Rossi Scotti.These are in Italian. Murray’s last edition of “Central Italy” containsclear and excellent general information, and there are several smalllocal guides—the best of these by Lupatelli—which can be{99} had in thehotel. No one who really desires to study the town should fail to readthe fascinating books of its best lover, Annibale Mariotti; and theworks of Conestabile and Vermiglioli are invaluable for students. Allthese can be had in the public library of the town where there is apleasant quiet room in which to study them, and the excessive courtesyof whose head—Count Vincenzo Ansidei—makes research an easy pleasurethere.

The topography of Perugia is simple: “The entire city,” says Mariotti,“since the very earliest days, was divided into five quarters orrioni, which from the centre, that is to say, the highest point of thetown, and with as gentle an incline as the condition of the groundallows, stretch out in five different directions like so many sunbeamsacross the mountain side. These gates are:Porta Sole to the east,Porta Susanna to the west (formerly called Trasimene),Porta S.Angelo (formerly Porta Augusta) to the north,Porta S. Pietro to thesouth, andPorta Eburnea to the southwest. Each of these separategates bears its own armorial design and colour. Porta Sole is white andbears a sun with rays; Porta Susanna blue, with a chain; Porta S. Angelored, with a branch of arbutus; Porta S. Pietro yellow, with a balance,and Porta Eburnea green, with a pilgrim’s staff.”

Owing to the extraordinary situation of the town there are hardly anylevel squares or streets. The two considerable flat open spaces oneither side of the Prefettura, the site of the Prefettura itself and ofthe hotel Brufani are artificial spaces, the result of the demolition ofPaul III.’s fortress (see chap. vi.). We imagine that many intelligentpersons have passed through the comfortable hotel of Perugia notrealising at all the artificial nature of the ground on which it stands.The Corso and the Piazza di S. Lorenzo may be said to be{100} the heart ofthe town; its pulse beats a little lower down in the Piazza Sopramurowhere fruit and vegetables are sold and where there is a perpetualmarket-day.[50] The other big open square is the Piazza d’Armi, on alower level of the hill and to the south of the town. There the cattlefair is held on Tuesdays, and there the beautiful white Umbrian oxen,with skins that are finer than the cattle of the plain, and the greyUmbrian pigs, and tall Umbrian men and girls can be seen in all theirglory. Here too is the convent of S. Giuliana with its splendidcloisters and little Gothic campanile, and here above all do thesoldiers of Perugia practice their bands, their horses, and their buglesevery morning.

There are three things lacking in Perugia, as there are naturally in allhill-cities, and these are gardens, carriages, and running water. Butall these wants have been delightfully overcome by the inhabitants. As amatter of fact, there are plenty of hidden gardens, behind the houses inthe town, but in almost every house you will see that iron sockets orrings have been fastened to the walls below the windows, and in{101}

PIAZZA SOPRAMURO, SHOWING THE PALACE OF THE CAPITANO DELPOPOLO AND THE BUILDINGS OF THE FIRST UNIVERSITY OF PERUGIA

{102}

{103}

these, pots of geraniums, daisies, and carnations are hung and tendedwith excessive care. Some of the better palaces or convents have stonebrackets in the shape of shells for window gardens, and even in the duskof grim December days the old stone walls seem green and living. Thelack of carriages is really only felt in winter when the inhabitantsseem to fall for the while asleep, leaving the streets to assume theirmediæval character, and to be swept by winter hurricanes; in spring andsummer the place is gay enough; indeed the Corso is a very good specimenof Umbrian Piccadilly on a fine May evening, and there are plenty ofcarriages in the tourist season. But go into any palace of Perugia andyou will find the sedan chairs of our grandfathers ready for instantuse, proving that carriages are quite a modern innovation in the town.

The need of running water is, of course, the most serious point about sobig and prosperous a city, and a running stream to turn a paper millwould heal more ills than all her pictures and her wide calm view. Thegreat rushing stream of the Tiber down at the foot of the hill seemslike a sort of solemn mockery to people who have only wells and a littleriver from the hill to drink from and to wash their linen in. We haverealized this on winter nights when the Tiber was out in flood in themoonlight down below our windows, and small drops freezing, one by one,on Pisano’s fountain behind us in the square.

Yet the town is prosperous. Its inhabitants and those of the communehave increased by some six thousand since the days of its firstprosperity. Commerce, it is true, seems somewhat at a standstill. Thereis the commerce of travellers, which is by no means inconsiderable; andthere is the commerce of Mind. This last Perugia has always had sincethe days when she grew powerful, and the University of{104} Perugia hasplayed a constant and important part throughout her annals. It wasfounded in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and its management,like other things in the city, was chiefly in the hands of the peopleand their representatives, thePriori. FiveSavi, one from eachrione, were told off to regulate its affairs and to elect itsprofessors. Urban VIII. brought it under the management of the Church,but this did not in any way alter its first rules and laws. We hear that“the Emperor Charles IV. bestowed upon the University all thosedistinctions which were enjoyed by the most celebrated universities ofthe Empire,” and Napoleon confirmed these and added much to themagnificence of Perugia’s university. It was during the Napoleonic rulethat the college was transferred from its old quarters in the PiazzaSopramuro to the vast new buildings at Montemorcino. Her three mainbranches of study are jurisprudence, science, and theology. Several ofthe popes studied in Perugia. S. Thomas Aquinas lectured here, and manydistinguished men of science and of law passed through their firstschools in the Umbrian hill town. The two great lawyers Baldo Baldeschiand Bartolo Alfani were students in the University of Perugia, andAlberico Gentile, who afterwards lectured in Oxford, studied here at theUniversity. The affairs of war were never allowed to interfere withthose of the mind, and we hear that a guarantee of safe conduct wasgiven to any scholar who came here from a distance.

The arts of peace, such as the manufacture of wool and silken stuffs,were known in the middle ages in spite of the want of water (the handand foot looms of Perugia are almost prehistoric in their simplicity),and in 1297 we hear of the magistrates of Perugia sending an embassyinto Lombardy to fetch two friars{105} thence who should teach theirtownsfolk the secrets of weaving. This art was zealously kept up formany years, but finally it fell into decay. A branch of it has latelybeen revived by a Milanese lady, and thanks to her efforts we are againable to buy the strange flame-patterned carpets which we find on thealtars of so many of the older Umbrian churches.

Except in the Corso, life seems very quiet in Perugia. Yet though thereis poverty, there is none of that feeling of decayed splendour, ofarrested magnificence and luxury which we feel in so many cities ofItaly. The Perugians were probably never very luxurious. There are oneor two beautiful old palaces, but they are plain to look at, and thepalaces of the nobles had a bad time of it and were constantly pulled tobits as their different owners were driven into the country. The town isa town of a strong people; it is dignified and peaceful. When the windis not battering about its roofs and howling through its narrow streetsone becomes aware of an extraordinary silence.

And in that silence the questions rise—one cannot stifle them: Whereare theBeccherini and where are theRaspanti? Are the Baglionireally dead, and the Oddi, where are they? And the Flagellants and thePenitenti—have even their ghosts departed? Will not a pope ride in atthe gates with his nephews and his cardinals and take up peacefulquarters in the grim Canonica? Will not some warlike Abbot come andbatter down the church towers to build himself a palace? Will noprocession pass us with a banner of Bonfigli, and women wailing that theplague should be removed?...

The snow falls silently upon the roads in winter. No blood of noblesstains it. In May all Umbria is{106} green with crops. Nocondottierecomes to trample down the corn. But high upon her hill-top Perugiastands as she stood then, and in her silence seems to wait for somethingyet to come.

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

Before closing this chapter we would once again repeat that no one witha few hours’ leisure should forbear to wander round the outer walls ofthe town before leaving Perugia. With only one break: that which isformed by the deep ravine (orbulagnjo in the local dialect) betweenPorta Sant Antonio and Porta S. Angelo, one can walk on quite good pathsand roads under the outer walls of the entire city. The Via dellaCuparella is a pleasant lane reached by passing out through PortaEburnea. It skirts under the mediæval and Etruscan walls to the west ofthe town and re-enters the city again a little below Porta Susanna. Thislane is one of the most sheltered corners in Perugia, and we havewandered up and down it in the early days of January, and found thesleepy lizards basking on its banks and yellow aconites in all thefurrows. The trees bud early there; their young green shimmers like avision of immortal youth against the grim walls of the mediæval andEtruscan city up beyond.

Another charming walk is that along the eastern side of the town,passing out through Porta S. Ercolano and through the Corso away alongthe broad high-road to the convent of Monte Luce, which is quite one ofthe most fascinating buildings of Perugia, with its front of white androsy marble, its court-yard and rose window, and the splendid block ofits nunnery walls covering the crest of the hill behind the church. Theconvent was built early in the thirteenth century on the site, some say,of an Etruscan temple dedicated to the Goddess Feronia, but moreprobably in the sacred wood orlucus from which it derived its name.{107}It was one of the most prosperous convents of the country, and Mariottigives a delightful account of a visit paid by the great Farnese Pope,Paul III., to its Abbess. The Pope, it seems, gave himself thepermission to visit the nuns, who received him, “marvelling,” as themost learned nun of her day relates, “that the Vicar of God on earthshould so far humiliate himself as to visit such vile servants, as wewere.” The Pope came into the church and took the seat prepared for himin the choir, “all of his own accord, without being helped by anybody,and like a meek and gentle lamb ... and being seated, he said to thesisters, ‘Come everyone of you and kiss my foot.’ ” Then the Abbess andthe sisters kissed the feet of the Pope. A long conversation andexchange of compliments followed, and finally at sundown the Popedeparted, “very greatly edified.”

CONVENT OF MONTE LUCE

From Monte Luce one road winds down to the{108} Tiber, passing under thecharming villa of Count Rossi Scotti, and another back into the city,first through a strange row of wooden booths which are opened on thefeast day of Monte Luce (August 15th), and then on through the walls ofMommaggiore’s fortress and back into the town through Porta S. Antonio.

But it is not possible to describe all the details of a place which,like all fair things, should be explored to be enjoyed. The discovery ofits hidden lanes, its little wayside villas, and its churches must beleft as it was left to the present writers, who never will forget thetramps they took in the brown winter twilight, the drives on warm springafternoons when honeysuckle scented all the hedges, and the strangeexcited feelings which possessed them when they found the hidden waysidehouse or chapel, which had no written record to tell them who had builtit, and nothing but its own Perugian charm to endear it to them, and togive it history.{109}

CHAPTER V

Palazzo Pubblico, The Fountain, and the Duomo

IN Professor Freeman’s small sketch of Perugia he says very truly thatthe most striking points of the city—that is to say, of the Mediævaland Renaissance period—are those which are gathered together in thePiazza di San Lorenzo.

The whole atmosphere of the square is unique and impressive: individualas are the piazzas of the largest and the smallest towns in Italy whichhave battled for their independence throughout the course of centuries.The buildings have been changed about, burnt, battered and rebuilt, butthe spirit of the middle ages has never really left them. Sitting on thesteps of the Duomo we seem to feel it creep up round our feet telling usstories of a past which is immortal. It was here that the people ofPerugia fought and judged, preached and repented, loved maybe, and mostcertainly hated. It was in this little pulpit above our heads that S.Bernardino preached, and saw the books of necromancy and the false hairof the ladies burned; here that thePodestà and the people receivedambassadors with deeds of submission from terrified neighbour towns. Onthe spikes of the railing round the fountain one set of nobles stuck theheads of others whom they hated, whom they slaughtered; and down thosesteps of the palazzo opposite,{110} the great procession of thePrioricame on days of solemn ceremony, and up through the dark gateway of theCanonica the Pope and all his cardinals passed in when they arrived fromRome. Truly the spirit of the past history is not dead. It is painfullyand supremely living. The Piazza di S. Lorenzo on a December night withwindstorms hurrying the sleet across its great grim walls is moreabsolutely filled with theterribilità of humanity than anything weever realised.

One strange fact to trace in the square is the splendid preservation ofthe municipal buildings as compared to the almost ruinous condition ofthose of the church. The strife between the people and the papacy iscarved as it were upon the very hearts of the monuments, and whereas thepalace of the people has remained comparatively perfect—a beautifulfinished building which delights the eye—the palace of the popes hasbeen battered and abused almost to destruction at the hand of man, offires and of time. Almost the only lovely detail which still clings tothe face of the cathedral is the small pulpit whence the saint of Sienapreached to the people; and this in itself is a symbolical fact, for itwas the power of a single humansoul which, for an instant tamed, ifit could not quell, the passion of the Perugians. The power of thechurch, as church, never really mastered them. Paul III. mastered them,but he did so in the character of a warrior and tyrant.

As far as position goes the cathedral entirely dominates the municipalpalace. It stands so high that in any distant view of the city it seemsto soar above the other buildings. As we have seen before, the Perugianshad but little patience with architectural or æsthetic matters. “Theyalways preferred Mars to the Muse,” says Bonazzi. Some grim and enduringrespect kept their hands off their municipal palace when once it hadbeen completed to their satisfaction, they{111}

PIAZZA DI S. LORENZO, SEEN FROM UNDER THE ARCHES OF THEPALAZZO PUBBLICO

took the precaution of putting a large iron fence round their fountain,but their cathedral suffered. They were zealous during the time of theirprosperity to have a large and splendid church, but they never foundtime to finish or adorn it. They left the brickwork naked, hoping forsome chance fight to furnish them with marbles for it, and in 1385 theywere able to secure those which had been prepared for the cathedral ofArezzo. But they did not keep them. Pellini{112} gives a weird account ofthe bringing of these marbles. “These things being accomplished,” hesays, referring to a very inhuman siege and conquest over theunfortunate Arezzo, “some outward sign of the acknowledged victory wasnecessary; so many marble stones were brought back to Perugia with somepaintings upon them which had been formerly in the cathedral of thecity; and the oxen and carts which brought them hither, with all the menwho worked to bring them, were dressed out by our city with red cloth;but of those said stones, although they were certainly put up outsidethe walls of our cathedral, no sign at all remains.” A little laterPellini explains their loss, for the people of Arezzo got back theirmarbles. “They started on their journey back to Arezzo,” says thefaithful historian, who will acknowledge no possible conquest of his owncity, “and were put up on a part of their church where they may now beseen, white and red in colour, and very lovely to behold.”

Throughout the history of Perugia, in the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies, we hear of fights and skirmishes in the square, but it wasalways the cathedral and not the palace which was turned into afortress. In 1489 one of the endless fights between the Baglioni and theOddi occurred, and the cathedral became a castle. Guido Baglioni arrivedin hot haste from Spello, and proceeded to turn the Oddi out of Perugia.“Girolamo della Penna,” says Villani, “deserted his brother Agamemnonand joined the Signori Baglioni, taking with him Silvio del Abate andothers, and, together with the Baglioni, they took possession of S.Lorenzo, placed artillery there, and fortified the church, its loggia,and its roof in every way they knew of.” The Duomo, on this occasion,proved such an excellent stronghold, that the Oddi outside were entirelydiscomfited, and had to abandon the siege and retire{113} once more to thecountry. Another remarkable instance of fighting between the twopugnacious families is given by Fabretti, which illustrates, moreover,the slight power possessed by the Pope at that period. “At the end ofOctober 1488 there was a great fight in the Piazza degli Aratri, andthen the Baglioni collected in the piazza, and an ever-increasing throngof supporters assembled round them. And on that same day the brother ofthe Pope (Innocent VIII.) arrived, and as he passed by the piazza thepeople called out, ‘Chiesa, chiesa.’ He was accompanied to the stepsof the Palazzo Pubblico by Guido and Grifonetto Baglioni, who hoped thathe might manage to arrange matters. But thePriori looked out of thewindows above them, and seeing the Baglioni in the street below, theybegan to throw down large and heavy stones in the hopes of woundingGuido Baglioni. The hubbub continued with renewed force, and only atdusk did stillness fall upon the city.”

Palazzo Pubblico.

Having glanced thus rapidly over the general historical interest of thepiazza, it may be well to describe the buildings separately, taking thePalazzo Pubblico first. Anyone who comes to Perugia, even for a singleafternoon, will naturally hurry to this point and spend an hour or twoin the Cambio and Pinacoteca; but if a little time remains he shouldwander further through its public corridors and halls and archives, itscouncil chambers, library, and prisons. All these are gathered togetherwith a certain indifference to the first lines of architecture in theshell of the massive old buildings, and by penetrating these mysteriousregions one seems better able to understand the spirit of historicalPerugia. The iron force of the{114}

REMAINS OF THE FIRST PALAZZO DEI PRIORI IN THE VIA DELVERZARO

people’s law—that force which alone kept head above the breakers offoreign wars and civil discord in the past—slumbers, but is not dead,in the halls where it once reigned. A hum of modern life, a host ofmodern busts and portraits now clash with, now mellow, the sombre wallsand passages. At the other end of the Corso there is a grand newPrefettura, where the Prefect of all Umbria manages Umbrian{115} matters,but the pulse of the old city beats on in its old veins. ThePriori,with their golden chains and crimson gowns, have vanished, but the menand women of the land are pretty much the same. They wear big collars offoxes’ fur on their long winter cloaks, just as they did in mediævaltimes, and they bring their claims of business into their first house ofbusiness, they swarm and hum within the corridors, and trample up anddown the wide stone staircase with dignified determination stamped upontheir features. In the rooms to which they go the clerks sit writingsteadily amidst their piles of archives and of blue-books. Few probablyof all these people know, and fewer care, about the Peruginos andBonfiglis in the rooms above; for the natural man or woman desires topray before his saints and not to pay to stare at them.

We hear that the present palace was finished in the middle of thefourteenth century. Long before that date there had been a public hallwhere the rulers of the city met to discuss and settle its affairs.[51]But this building was comparatively small and cramped, and the newmeeting-house was undertaken with superb disregard to expense. A roughcalculation from the many bills shows us that upwards of 14,041librewas spent on the building of it, but it took nearly one hundred andthirty years to build, and the fact that it was finished at differentperiods—a bit being added at intervals{116} down the Corso—may account forthe waving and irregular line of the east front, which is one of itsmost marked features.

The first architects employed were natives of Perugia: Fra Bevignate andMessers Giacomo di Servadio and Giovanello di Benvenuto. The originalplan of the building was probably a perfect square, reaching from itspresent north front down to where the great door now stands. One shouldexamine the building from the back in order to understand it fully. Atone time we hear that Lombard workmen were called in to assist in the“very heavy labour,” which, perhaps, gives a certain Lombard look toparts of the brickwork round the windows.

The citizens took a vast interest in the erection of their publicpalace, and allowed many private houses and even churches to be pulleddown in order to make room for it. As for the decoration of thecathedral, so also for that of the palace, a neighbouring town wasransacked to furnish ornaments, and the unhappy Bettona was stripped ofmarbles to supply the magnificentPriori with their pillars and theirfriezes. Different portions of the huge edifice were given to theprincipal city guilds to decorate, and it was probably a spirit ofemulation in these societies which produced the costly beauties of theseparate parts. The chapel was decorated by the Merchants’ Guild, andalso the principal door, which was dedicated to St Louis of Toulouse. Itis a beautiful piece of work, rich and lovely in its smallest detail,and carved in the grey stone calledpietra serena, which always looksa little cold and dusty, like the fur on a grey mole’s back, but whichlends itself to a certain attractive style of polished carving peculiarto old doorways in Perugia.[52] Through it one passes into an immense{117}hall, from which a staircase leads into the rooms of the palace above.In former times there were no steps, and persons of distinction and ofwealth rode up on horseback to the council chambers.

A splendid open-air staircase leads up to the north entrance of thepalace, which is, perhaps, the most impressive architectural point inall Perugia. Some years ago this fine outer staircase was pulled down;but it has been rebuilt with extreme care and taste, and probablyexactly on the original lines. One can fancy the great procession of thePodestà and thePriori proceeding up and down these steps on days ofsolemn ceremony. “Four mace-bearers went before them,” we are told,“bearing in their hands a silver staff richly covered with beautifullywrought figures, with the griffin on the top in enamelled relief.Without these mace-bearers it was not lawful for magistrates to go out.”Each of the tenPriori wore round his neck “a heavy golden chain, theemblem of his office; and on solemn occasions the magistrate waspreceded by six trumpeters to herald his approach with silver trumpets,which same were about four metres in length, beautifully enamelled, andwith streamers of red satin on which the white griffin of the city wasdepicted.”

The principal door, from which thePriori probably emerged, is guardedby great brazen beasts: a griffin and a lion, emblems of the city andthe Guelphs. These creatures are very typical creations from the brain{118}of some Perugian artist, and among the most impressive objects of theirsort in Italy. They were originally made for a fountain in the square bya certain Maestro Ugolino, who received the modest sum of ten pounds formaking them. In 1308 the fountain was destroyed, and a little later theywere hoisted up to their present position. Long chains and keys hungfrom their claws in early days. “At the feet of these beasts,” saysRossi, “the bars and keys of the doors of Assisi were hung as glorioustrophies in 1321; and in 1358 the keys of the Justice Hall of Siena. Theundisciplined militia which entered Perugia on the 3rd August 1799pulled them down secretly, (‘in the silence of the night’ Mariottisays,) and thus took from the citizens of the present day thesatisfaction of restoring to their rightful owners these disgracefulmementos of patriarchal warfare with cities, who to-day are their bestfriends. The fragments which remain have not the slightest historicalinterest; they are merely the bars from which the above-mentionedarticles once hung.”

The door with the brazen beasts above it leads straight into theSaladei Notari—a splendid vaulted hall, its ceiling covered with frescoes,surrounded by high wooden stalls and steps of walnut. This big hall wasgiven over to the lawyers of Perugia in 1583. They bought it, and theirCollegio down below, from the city for the sum of 1000scudi; and theyat once decorated their fine new quarters, and settled comfortably intothem, doing all their business there till early in the century. By thecode of Napoleon they were, however, deprived of their privileges, andduring the imperial French rule the hall was used as a criminal court.The lawyers seem to have been utterly unhinged in their arrangements.They never returned to the pleasant haunts from which the Emperor oustedthem, and the{119} big hall is now used for public concerts and lectures.

The room which corresponds with this one on the upper storey is now thePublic Library, with a magnificent collection of over 50,000 volumes,some valuable manuscripts and beautiful painted missals.

Leaving theSala dei Notari one crosses the main staircase of thepalace, and passes into the living heart of the building, into a networkof separate rooms and offices which it is not necessary to describe atlength. TheSala del Consiglio Comunitativo, ord’Udienza, isbeautifully decorated with crimson damask, and delicate arabesques, andhas a fine open fire-place carved inpietra serena. Adone Doni’spicture of Julius III. (see page 181) is hung in this room, and from itone can gain a pretty accurate knowledge of what thePriori and thepotentates of Perugia looked like in their gala clothes. In theSaladegli Archivi there is a fresco of Parnassus by Baroccio. The colour isvery fresh still, and the nymphs seem hopelessly out of place above thepiles of dusty archives.

There is a curious history connected with theSala delMalconsiglio—that room with the exquisite fresco by Fiorenzo diLorenzo over its main entrance door.[53] It was here that the celebrateddebate took place concerning the English prisoners (Hawkwood’s men) whomthe Perugians succeeded in capturing during the great fight down by theTiber. The prisoners concocted a letter as they lay in their cells, andin the most pathetic terms they appealed to their capturers; “We too areChristians,” they urged, “but we die of thirst. Have mercy upon us, havemercy on your poor captives,your English vassals.” The Perugians,{120}moved, or more probably flattered by the cringing words, in a moment ofill-timed leniency, let their captives free. They lived to regret theaction. A short time later Hawkwood and his men attacked them in anotherbattle on the bridge of S. Giovanni. The English gained an easy victory,1500 of the Perugians fell, and thePodestà and the German captain oftheir troops were taken prisoners together with a host of other men.Thus it came about that the room in which the council met to decide therelease of the English was thenceforth called theSala delMalconsiglio in memory of the lamentable decision witnessed by itswalls.

Hawkwood’s men were not confined, as it happens, in the prisons of thePalazzo Pubblico, but no pity can be too great for those who were, forthe Perugians were by no means dainty in their treatment of prisoners inmediæval times. The street which runs from thePiazza down into theVia dei Priori is still called theVia della Gabbia because of thelarge iron cage which used to hang above it from the upper windows ofthe palace. In this cage the Perugians were wont to imprison thieves andother malefactors, and not even the clergy escaped the horriddegradation. In 1442 we read of a priest, Angelo di Marino, who robbedRoberto di Ser Francesco di Ferolo of some of his possessions: “themissing articles,” says Fabretti, “were found concealed in the campanileand under the altars, and, together with Angelo, the brothers of thepriest were discovered to be accomplices, also a friar of S. Fiorenzoand many other priests and excellent citizens. On the 29th the saidAngelo was put into a round cage, and with a cord he was dragged up intothe corner wall of the Palace of the Podestà and there he remained fortwo days, and in the night he was put into prison and in the{121}

OLDEST PART OF THE PALAZZO PUBBLICO

{122}

{123}

loggia of that palace twelve sacks of stolen goods were stored and roundthat cage there was a garland of false keys ... and on the 28th ofJanuary the said Angelo was once again put back into the cage at midday,and it was very cold and there was much snow, and he remained there tillthe first day of February, both night and day, and that same day he wasbrought out dead and laid upon his bier in the piazza, and he was buriedin the passage of S. Lorenzo which leads into the cloister.”

A big “open-air” prison looked into theVia della Gabbia: a sort oflarge cavern in the fathomless walls of the old building, and here nodoubt the wretched prisoners sat huddled in chains together, a prey toall the pigs and passers-by. A corkscrew staircase leads up from thelower prisons to the higher storeys of the palace, and into this, merelyin the thickness of the wall, separate cells are built, windowless,undrained, airless places, where other unfortunate persons were put bythe “men of warlike spirit.”

There were even rougher modes than these of dealing with malefactors. Onone occasion we hear of the most barbarous butchery of some gentlemenwhose offences were purely political. Some were “thrown from the windowsof the Palazzo Pubblico, and others were hanged from thelumiere, orlong spikes which project from its lower walls.” Thelumiere wereintended for the heads of Perugia’s enemies, and one can fancy the facesof the butchered men looking down on the unforgiving citizens, whilsttheir blood dripped into the street. All through Perugia’s history wefind references to thelumiere: “On the 3rd of July 1541, the head ofCiancio de Burelio was borne along by one of the twenty-five rebels ofthe Pope, a student killed him: his head was put on alumiere outsidethe Palace of thePodestà” (Fabretti, iii. 22).{124}

There were strange ways of catching prisoners in Perugia. We find onestatute which shows us that every artizan was obliged to hang certainhooks and gaffs to his house walls “ready to help in the capture of acriminal, and all were expected to help in this said capture.”[54]

But if there was rude cruelty shown to prisoners it is fair to say therewas also an occasional rude mercy. No doubt the latter was excited inthe Perugians by their extreme religious superstition. We hear of an oldcustom of liberating prisoners “pro amore Dei.” “Every six months, twobuon’ uomini (or good men) were chosen to elect certain officials whowere given full power to let out five condemned prisoners on HolyFriday, two at Christmas, two on the feast of S. Ercolano, and two onCorpus Domini. Also two women on every feast of the Virgin Mary. In thechoice of women, only those condemned for minor offences must beliberated. The men let out must have suffered six months’ imprisonment,and the women one month, and neither must have been liberated in thismanner (pro amore Dei) on previous occasions.” Also there was to bestrict silence on{125} the nature of the offence. ThePodestà publishedthe names of the freed prisoners in three parts of the town so that thecitizens might protest if they happened to be so minded. Three dayslater the prisoners were free and went to render thanks in the Church ofS. Ercolano, after which they presented themselves before the civilauthorities at the Palazzo Pubblico. Thesescarcerati pro amore dei,as they were called, were excluded from all public offices, “it notbeing decent,” says the statute, “that they should be on the same levelas the rest of the Perugians.”

The Fountain.

There is one remarkable object in the Piazza of S. Lorenzo which haslittle or nothing to do with individual factions or with the affairs ofChurch and State, and this is the famous fountain which we are told wasever “dear as the apple of their eye to the people of Perugia.” Indeedthe citizens were in the habit of declaring that their fountain was“unique not only in Italy but in the entire world.”

This beautiful bit of early Renaissance sculpture needs but a slightdescription here, for its form is familiar to most people either throughengravings or through photographs. It is, however, a rather common errorto suppose, as Vasari himself did, that the Pisani were the solearchitects of the fountain. The only certain work which they did for itwas the ornamentation of the panels and probably the statues. The wholeplan of the fountain was supplied by the Perugian architect, FraBevignate, and it was he who called in other sculptors to help in thebuilding.[55] In 1277 he applied to Charles of Anjou for{126} permission toemploy the Florentine, Arnolfo di Lapo, to help with the sculptures onthe second basin, and in the same year a certain Rosso designed and madethe third bronze basin with its pillar and its ornaments of Nereids andof griffins on the top.[56]

The fountain rises from the square—a broad pile of marble now almostblack with age, upon a circle of stone steps. The second basin issupported on a forest of slender columns which give an airiness and anecessary lightness to the whole. The designs upon its panels, which areinfinite in their variety, were made by Niccola Pisano and carried outby his son Giovanni. These two big marble basins are crowned by a thirdin bronze with the figures of three Nereids rising from it, and bearingon their heads the eternal griffin of Perugia, without which fascinatingbeast no single house or building in the city would ever seem complete.

Niccola Pisano and his son must have studied the tastes of the Perugianswith exquisite care and tact, combining these with the more generalartistic taste of the age in which they worked. The panels on the firstlarge basin are a fascinating study: the months of the year, and Æsop’sfables, scenes of domestic life and Roman legend, the griffin and talesfrom the Old Testament, the Umbrian saints, the sciences and arts, allwonderfully intermingled upon the separate panels. Even the old jokeabout the fishes is gracefully treated by the Florentine sculptor, forLake Trasimene, as a beautiful woman, clasps three largelasche in herrounded arms. S. Ercolano, too, is here in all his glory, together withS. Louis of Toulouse and S. Costanzo.

One cannot help wondering how Perugia got her drinking water in earlydays. We may imagine that it{127}

{128}

{129}

THE REAPER. DETAIL IN PANEL ON THE FOUNTAIN

was entirely through wells, and wells on the top of a hill are apt torun dry. Thirst, therefore, was probably a far stronger factor in timesof siege than the cowardice of her inhabitants, and the city must oftenhave been driven to capitulate through the terrible need of water,rather than through the fear of foreign arms. As the city grew, a senseof inadequacy on this particular point grew too, and people began towonder how water could be procured from some fresh running spring uponthe neighbouring hills; yet to bring it up to such a height seemed tothe Perugians an almost insuperable difficulty. An early genius nearlysolved it for them, but like other early geniuses he failed. In 1254Frate Plenario, an obscure preaching friar, wandering through the woodsand hills around Perugia, conceived, what in those days seemed the mosthazardous scheme, of bringing water into the piazza of the city by meansof a large aqueduct from the hill of Monte Pacciano, which lies threemiles or so to the north of the town. Plenario urged his scheme upon themagistrates, they approved it, and after certain difficulties as to thenecessary funds they determined to embark on the adventurousundertaking. Frate Plenario was put at the head of the works, and MesserBonomi chosen as architect. But the plan was large, the execution verydifficult. The arches were built too small and fragile, and carried attoo low a level. They fell to ruin in the woods, and the poor littlepriest and his friend Bonomi vanished with the desolation of theirworks. Their plans, however, never died, they merely remained to becarried out by stronger if not subtler minds.

In 1274 the question of a fountain again became paramount in Perugia.More solid channels were built across the hills and the ambitiousmagistrates called in the most skilled sculptors of the day to decoratea receptacle for the precious water when it should arrive.{130} It came forthe first time on the 15th of February 1280, and we can fancy the joyfulpride of the citizens as they saw it running over the lovely marble andbrass basins which had been so carefully prepared for it.

The most elaborate and stringent laws were made for the guardianship ofthe fountain and the use of its waters. It was enclosed, as it isto-day, with iron railings, and was, as the ever sarcastic Bonazzirightly says, “the subject of most grave solicitude.” We hear that therewere seven troughs which gathered the water outside the railing, but“beasts, barrels, unwashed pots, and unclean hands were forbidden theuse of the water, and indeed this was guarded with such jealous carethat it seemed as though the people of Perugia had built their fountainfor the sake of beauty only.... Yet,” adds Bonazzi, “the five hundredflorins which were annually given over to its maintenance, withoutcounting extra expenses and the wages of its special porters andsuperior officers, would have been ill-spent indeed if beauty had beenmissing in the monument.”

But if it was difficult to bring the water it was equally difficult tokeep it always running. The elegant pile of marbles, the thing that thePodestà, the priests and the people all combined in literally dotingon, was for ever running dry, and growing lifeless. In this nineteenthcentury the Prefect of Perugia is about to send some forty miles insteadof three to fetch his people water, but the great fountain will be thereto hold it when it comes, and the first aqueduct will remain to breakwith exquisite lines the little copses and the fields away to the northof the city.

We know of few lovelier points about Perugia than the place where itswater is stored on the lower hills of Monte Pacciano—low wooded hillswhere the{131}

{132}

{133}

GEOMETRY. DETAIL IN A PANEL OF THE FOUNTAIN

white heath grows in spring-time amongst the copses of crimson-stemmedarbutus, and where one can lie for hours on the turf looking away toTrasimene, and all the waving hills and smaller hill-set cities of theUmbrian country. Here the Perugians catch and store their drinking waterin three great reservoirs. The first of these was built some time at theend of the thirteenth century. The masonry is rough and massive, and thewater seems more green and more mysterious in the mediæval basin than inthose of this practical nineteenth century. We went there late one Aprilafternoon, and lingered long in the cool and cavernous places where thewater is gathered together. As we came home we traced the course of theold aqueducts which have long since been abandoned. The springs to-dayare carried underground in a sort of switch-back fashion over thesloping hillsides. But the ruins of the earlier conduit remain in theirold places. Seeing them, we thought of the times in which they hadsupplied the men and horses crawling home from some hot skirmish on theplain, and of how the water had washed the blood of nobles from thesteps of the Duomo and quenched the thirst of preaching friars andpainters. How dead, howgone, that passionate past, how hum-drum, andhow dreary seemed the clatter of the table d’hôte when we got back thatevening.

But in describing the water supply of the city, we have wandered ratherfar afield from the subject of the piazza. A great flight of steps leadsfrom the back of the fountain up to the cathedral.

Cathedral of S. Lorenzo.

As we have pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, the Church hassuffered terribly, both from{134}

ON THE STEPS OF THE CATHEDRAL

neglect and warfare. The outer walls look very brown and bruised andnaked too, without their marbles, but as such they form a monument ofhistory which few would wish to alter. The first old church was pulleddown in 1200 in order to make room for a superb new cathedral which wasto take the place of the old one down outside the city walls at PortaS.{135} Pietro, and the citizens met in solemn conclave to talk theirproject out, they even appointed their architect, Fra Bevignate, to maketheir plans for them. But the Perugians were full of wars, and otherbusiness and buildings at that period, and they soon found that theirfunds were far too low to allow of a new cathedral. They therefore letthe matter drop, and some years passed before they made another effort.In 1345 the Bishop laid the foundation stone of S. Lorenzo. It was asolemn occasion, and all the clergy were present at the ceremony; butthe stone, when laid, remained in solitary state for the rest of thecentury, and the people of Perugia were forced to pray and sing, tomarry and baptise elsewhere, for another hundred years went by beforethe building was completed. Other catastrophes awaited it when finished,for the inexorable French Abbot Mommaggiore was at that time buildinghis fortress at Porta Sole, and in doing this he found it necessary toknock down a great part of the new cathedral. Finally, in the middle ofthe fifteenth century, Bishop Baglioni, whose beautiful tomb stands tothe right as one enters the cathedral, put the place in comparativeorder again, and it only remained for his descendants to use it as theirfortress in the years to come!

There is a feeling of great warmth about the interior of S. Lorenzo,which is built in the form of a Latin cross with three naves. Theceiling is badly painted, much of the glass is poor, the twelve tallcolumns covered with a sort of stucco which imitates a stone no one hasever seen and only the artist dreamed of; but with all these faults thechurch has charm, and none of that desolate chill which the outsidewalls suggest. The clergy are rich at Perugia; the people have neverlost their strong{136} religious sense, which the advance of civilisationhas turned from a wild fanaticism to a tone of more sober devotion, andthe services are always impressive in S. Lorenzo—the whole body of thechoir filled with choristers, the priests forming themselves intosplendid coloured groups around the bishop’s chair, and up against thewoodwork and red damasks on the stalls.

Something of the life of the city, and much of the lives of the popes,has crept into the inner walls of the cathedral. The chapel of S.Bernardino stands to the right as one enters. This belonged to theMerchants’ Guild of Perugia, and by them it was magnificently decorated.The merchants purchased their rights to the chapel in 1515, and they atonce began to adorn it with splendid woodwork. They were naturallyanxious to get a really good picture for their altar, but they tooktheir time to select a suitable artist. Finally, they decided onFederigo Baroccio, of whose skill they had heard great things, and theysent their captain to Urbino where Baroccio lived, begging him to comeand paint their altar. The subject chosen was the “Descent from theCross.” Federigo came and finished his picture between 1567 and 1568.Tradition says that he was suffering from the effects of poison which ajealous person had administered to him in Rome, as he painted. Be thisas it may, his picture gave the utmost satisfaction not only to theMerchants’ Guild but also to “the whole city of Perugia,” and itscarcely looks like the work of a man who was sickening from the effectsof fatal drugs, but rather like that of one with all his health and witsabout him. The figures are full of action, and although the colour is sowarm and glowing, the atmosphere is one of storm and tempest. To theleft of the cross the Magdalen strains her white arms to theunconscious{137} Virgin whose figure is supported by a radiant woman in ayellow gown. To the right S. John stretches forward to catch the body ofthe falling Christ, whilst a young man, leaning backwards in a hurricaneof wind, supports Him to the left. The only quiet points in thisover-dramatic composition are the fainting figure of our Lady and thatof her dead Son. Looking at it one is reminded of Tintoretto’s work inits extravagant sense of action, but the touch of sentimentalitythroughout is foreign to the Venetian painter.[57]

Baroccio was a native of Urbino, born there in 1528. He studied paintingwith the Zuccheri and also with Michelangelo, Titian, and Raphael, andhe had in his day a great reputation for his treatment of sacredsubjects. It seems that he fell in love with the city of Perugia, for hestayed on painting there long after his work was finished, and he wouldoften come again like the popes and other tired persons of distinction.He adopted a child of Perugia, Felice Pelegrin, and took him back toUrbino, where he educated him as a painter. Felice became distinguishedin his way, and his success encouraged the generous Federigo to adoptanother child, Felice’s brother. But the second experiment was not sohappy. The boy grew into an astonishingly beautiful young man; womenidolised him and he was murdered by some jealous rival when stillcomparatively young.

To the left of Baroccio’s picture there is a fine glass window designedby Arrigo Fiammingo in 1565.{138} The window has been restored, but isbeautiful in parts, both in colour and design, and Perugia is not richin coloured glass. The subject represented is S. Bernardino of Sienapreaching to the people of Perugia in the church of S. Maria del Popolo.The Saint is in the background—he, and the people and the architectureround him, are brown and quiet in colour. The figures in the foregroundare far more brightly coloured, notably that of the old merchant in ablue cloak. The small naked boy who is leading him is perhaps the mostcharming point of the whole composition. The child’s figure is like alittle S. John, but he is probably meant to represent the Spirit of theMerchants’ Guild, for he has a bundle bound about his shoulders, overwhich his yellow curls fall down, and a bundle or “pacco” is the signof the Merchants’ Guild.

The stalls in the chapel are very fine work of the sixteenth century. Awhole book might easily be written about the stalls of the Perugianchurches. Their wealth of beauty and of real excellency isinexhaustible, but it would be hopeless in so short a space to attemptany full description of the individual ones. The choir of the cathedralis in itself a fine example and worthy of a very careful study.

Immediately opposite the chapel of S. Bernardino is that of the Virgin’sRing. To the mere lover of art the interest of this chapel is deadindeed. Perugino’s “Sposalizio”: that wonderful design which Pietrocreated for his Duomo, and which Raphael a few years later copied, went,as so many of the very best Perugian paintings went, to swell thegalleries of Napoleon. The poor picture has never travelled back acrossthe Alps as many of its contemporaries have done. It hangs on the wallsof the Gallery at Caen, and an{139} inferior copy fills the frame whichfirst was made to hold it.

To the pious, a treasure of infinitely greater price than Perugino’saltar-piece is still shut safe and sure within the railings of thechapel, and this is the wedding-ring of the blessed Virgin Mary. It wasbrought to Perugia by a certain Winterio di Magonza, who “piously stoleit” from Chiusi in 1472. The Ring is kept in a wonderful and exquisitelyworked silver casket,[58] but so extraordinary is its value, that it canonly be seen five times a year, and during the rest of the time amonstrous silver cloud covers the spot where it is stowed away.

We were privileged to see the Ring on one of Mary’s greatest feast days(December 8th), and to examine it closely, even to handle it. We shallnot ever forget the sight, which was impressive, and savoured almost ofa pagan rite. The Ring was exposed from 7A.M. to 6P.M. We went to seeit in the evening. In the square outside it was dark and pouring withcold rain, the great church too was dark and cold, a candle or two inthe organ loft, and the organ sending a stream of mysterious musicacross the aisle, for the benediction. In the chapel of the Relic therewas light—a blaze of innumerable candles, and underneath, the priestsand an immense throng of people at their prayers. A staircase hung withcrimson damask had been built for the day up the side of the wall to thelittle platform where the Ring is kept. We climbed the stairs to theplatform and entered the chapel up above. There were only a few of theprivileged Perugians there: some ladies, two smiths with the bolt andkeys, the custodian, one or two members of the municipality, and theRing which, in the light of all its candles, had an extraordinary, nayan even{140} uncanny effect, and seemed cut out of some large opal.[59] Whenthe service below was ended, the priest of the Ring arrived up theladder. He took the relic out of its shrine, and a strange, halfhysterical prayer went up from the tiny crowd. With the excessivecourtesy peculiar to the Perugians we were asked to come forward: “Youpeople of Perugia can always see your Ring, and these ladies arestrangers,” said the priest, who bade us examine it closely. Then thelocking up began, and it was a mighty business. The relic is kept in awonderful variety of cases. It is first locked into a little leatherncase with a golden key kept by the bishop. Fifteen other differentlocks, their keys kept by fifteen different persons of importance in thecity, follow. The weight of the last iron chest which covers the otherboxes is stupendous. Two locksmiths and a custodian could scarcelymanage to close it. As the locking up proceeded the candles wentgradually out in the cathedral, and only one or two small tapersremained to light the mysterious burial. We passed from the chapel intothe rain-swept square, and some of Ciatti’s strange, unlikely fables ranin our head as we splashed through the desolate wind-swept streets. Hetells us of the marvellous properties of the Ring—how the power{141}possessed by it was so potent that people’s ills were cured by merelylooking at it, and how when a Tuscan lady had the audacity to wear it,her hand became withered, even as a dead leaf in autumn. And then hegives the story of the finding of the Ring:—

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

There is a fine “miraculous”[60] picture on the third column to theright as one passes up the aisle of the cathedral. A great many mythscentre around it both as a work of art and as a healing relic. Some saythat it is the earliest painting in Perugia, transferred to its presentplace from the column of a Pagan temple where{142} an early Christianpainted it, others that it is the work of Giannicola Manni. Concerningthe miracles performed by it, the strings of silver hearts and offeringsbear ample testimony. The painting is very charming, and we hear thatPerugino loved it as a boy and drew his earliest inspirations fromit(?). Our Lady stands against a crimson arras, her hands are opened outas though to bless, her gown is of a faded pink, her mantle blue andlined with the green of early spring. She is so calm, so young, andsmiling, that one does not wonder at the crowds of worshippers whichlinger always round her shrine.

The chapel of the baptistery has some good Lombard stone work; and thereare one or two interesting things in the sacristy; splendidintarsiaover the presses where the priests of Perugia store their gorgeous gownsof cloth of gold and silver, and a wonderful bit of earlygesso workin the inner chapel.

There is a big altar-piece by Signorelli in the chapel of S. Onofrio,which is interesting as being the only comparatively good piece of themaster’s work in the whole of Perugia. The picture has suffered muchfrom restoration, but the restorer contented himself with mauling theprincipal points; he neglected the detail, which is admirablethroughout. The garlands of pink and white convolvulus behind the chairof our Lady are true to life; the Infant Christ carries a stem of liliesin his baby hand, and beside the long limbed angel who plays his lute atthe Virgin’s feet stands a tumbler full of the freshest jasmine, whilstbelow him on the steps another glass is filled with fading violets. Onemarvels that a man who could so superbly draw every line and muscle ofthe human body, should care to linger over these frail details of theflowers.{143}

In the left transept of the cathedral three of the popes are buried, andto anyone who has studied the history of the town and realised itsconnection with the power of Rome this otherwise rather dreary anduninteresting corner of the church will conjure up a host of halffantastic visions.[61]

The little porphyry urn on the right wall of the transept holds all theearthly remains of the three popes, Innocent III., Urban IV., and MartinIV., who all died at Perugia. A delightful legend is told concerning thedeath of Innocent. With his usual surprising seriousness the ingenuousCiatti tells us that the following remarkable vision occurred to acertain Abbot of the Cistercian order who was living in theneighbourhood at the time of Innocent’s death:

Innocent was, of course, a very powerful Pope, and the historians ofPerugia gloat over the fact that he did their city the honour to die init, devoting whole pages of their books to this important subject.

Urban IV. is another remarkable figure in the Church of Rome, and it wasduring his stay at Perugia that he threw his mighty bomb which was toexplode with such disastrous results upon the land of Italy. He wasprobably staying in the monastery of S. Pietro with his friend S. ThomasAquinas when he sent the fatal letter which summoned Charles of Anjoudown to Rome. “A terrible comet preceded Urban’s death which occurred in1264,” says Mariotti. There was a report that Urban had been done todeath by eating poisoned figs, but this is unfounded. The Pope lived inconstant terror of poison, and by his incessant talk and letters on thesubject had infected the minds of those around him.

Martin IV. is the last Pope buried in the Duomo. He often came toPerugia, and in 1285 he returned with the full intention of making aconsiderable stay there. But he died on Easter morning, having eaten asurfeit of eels; (it appears that Martin IV. was greedy of thisparticular delicacy). Dante records the fact in the “Purgatorio” (cantoxxiv.), where Forese points the Pope out seated among the gluttons:

{145}

The following inscription is said to have been written over Martin’stomb:

Perhaps it was with a view to expiate this very insulting epitaph thatthe Perugians, in spite of the canons of S. Lorenzo, who refused tocontribute to the fund, erected a magnificent tomb for Martin later on.They employed G. Pisano for the purpose, but only a few fragments of hiswork remain. Mommaggiore pulled it down, as he pulled so many otherthings, and used its priceless ornaments to adorn his own palace atPorta Sole. The two small pulpits on either side of the high altarscreen were made, it is said, from the fragments of the tomb, and also,perhaps, the marblePietà with the blue background which hangs on theright as you pass back down the church.[62]

The bones of the three Popes have been terribly pulled about: buried andthen unearthed, buried again, and changed. Innocent, according to mostauthorities, was buried in the cathedral. About 1376, when Martin’s tombwas destroyed by Mommaggiore, the bones of Innocent III. were taken fromtheir resting-place and laid along with those of the other two popes ina sort of chest, on the top of a cupboard, in the sacristy of the newcathedral. Thence, in 1605, the chest was removed to another chapel byorder of Bishop Comitoli. When it was opened the bodies of Martin and ofUrban were found intact, with their mitres and their chasubles; but ofthe powerful Innocent III. only a few broken bones remained, wrapped upin a little packet. It is probable that when the three Popes wereremoved from their different tombs in 1376{146} and stuffed into the chest,the memory of Innocent III. in connection with the temporal dominion ofthe popes in Perugia which he was the first to found, induced somepersons present to violate his tomb. Be this as it may, all the bones ofthe Popes now rest together in the dull little porphyry urn, crownedwith a brass tiara.[63]

In leaving the cathedral it would be well to glance at the tomb ofBishop Giovanni Andrea Baglioni, a beautiful bit of low relief inmarble. Very lovely are the three small angels with the ribbons in theirheavy hair, guarding the Baglioni arms, very alien from the spirit ofthat bloody race of men, the gentle figures of the women in the panels.

The Canonica.

One great building in the square remains to be described, namely, theCanonica, or, as Bonazzi calls it, the “Vatican of Perugia.” Although amere wreck of its former splendid self, this building is still one ofthe finest relics of the mediæval times that the city boasts of. Itstands to the left of the Duomo—a great mass of bricks, with hugecavernous rooms inside, and walls some six to eight feet thick inplaces. The cloister is comparatively modern, but the beautiful open-airstaircase which leads from it down into the Piazza Morlacchi is probablyvery much the same as it was in the days when the popes arrived to takea holiday in their loved Umbrian city.

In old days the magistrates and thePodestà shared the abode of theclergy, but, as may easily be imagined,{147}

IN THE CLOISTERS OF THE CANONICA (OR SEMINARY)

{148}

{149}

this arrangement did not answer, and was, as Bonazzi tells us, the causeof most extreme contention between the canons of the Church and thecouncillors of State. The canons had a very comfortable time in theCanonica. “Professing to follow the rule of St Augustine,” says Bonazzi,“they had much to fear from the manifold terrors of conscience.” Theircellars must have been excessively well stocked, for on one occasionwhen thePodestà’s property was burning, the flames were quenched bywine: “To extinguish the flames, nothing would do save the immensecellars of the colossally rich Canonica.”

Of the visits of the popes to Perugia we have dealt elsewhere (seechapter ii.). It is enough to say that they often came to the Canonica;three of them died there, and there were five conclaves in themysterious halls where the new popes were elected.

One beautiful story is told in the “Fioretti” about Gregory IX., whodoubted of the miracles of S. Francis till the saint appeared in personand revealed the truth to him. There is little doubt that the visionoccurred to the Pope as he slept or dreamed in his grand rooms at theback of the cathedral:—

{150}

Thus the power of the Umbrian Saint penetrated this grim Umbrianbuilding, and, appearing to the haughty Roman Pontiff, overcame him bythe power of pure holiness, even as it had overcome so many furiouspassions in a century that was evil.

S. FRANCIS FROM THE STATUE OF DELLA ROBBIA AT S. MARIADEGLI ANGELI, ASSISI

{151}

CHAPTER VI

Fortress of Paul III.—S. Ercolano—S. Domenico—S. Pietro—S. Costanzo

FROM an historical point of view the crowning interest of the buildingsof Perugia was to be found in the great fortress which Paul III. builtin the middle of the sixteenth century in order to amaze the citizens,and to subjugate the rebellious passions of the nobles. For threecenturies this huge building performed its office admirably and Perugialay silent and subdued under the oppressive shadow of its walls. But nosooner did other influences appear, no sooner did the imperial Frenchpower open a way to a freer method of government than that allowed byRome, than Perugia shook herself free of a yoke which had been odiousfrom the first, and on the 23rd December 1848, in the sight of a greatcrowd of people, and with a pomp and ceremony dear to the Perugians fromthe very darkest ages of their history, the first stones of the splendidbuilding were torn from their places. By a strange coincidence or,perhaps, agreement, the man to give the first blow was a certainBenedetto Baglioni, and as he let the hammer fall it split thecornerstone on the very spot where the palaces of his ancestors hadstood in former years! The masons followed suit, and soon the bricks andstones were tumbling from their places. The whole town joined in thework of devastation, but so splendid was the mortar{152} used by thebuilders of the indomitable Paul that at times nothing but blastingwould destroy the masonry. In one of the great explosions several peoplewere killed, “and thus,” says Bonazzi, “did the Farnese Pope once moreavenge himself on us, even after a period of three hundred and eightyears!”

No sooner was the Papal fortress gone than the Perugians began to makenew buildings on its site. All the modern architecture of the town hassprung, like fresh mushrooms spring, on the site of the old wood, and itis not easy in the present day to reconstruct Paul’s mighty citadel,hampered as our vision is by the open squares and houses which now havetaken possession of its site. It was divided into two parts. The toppart covered nearly the whole of the level space which the Prefetura,the Hotel Brufani, and the Piazza Emanuele now occupy. The fire of thePope’s guns could therefore be turned on recalcitrant citizens ornobles, either up the Corso and the Piazza Sopramuro, or down the mainapproach to the city from the road to Rome. A strong branch or buttressof the fort ran down from this high level to a second fort which, in theshape of a fan, extended itself along the level ground which is nowoccupied by municipal buildings and the Piazza d’Armi; a large part ofthe lower building was devoted to a great walled square for games,called the Piazza del Pallone.

Adolphus Trollope was one of the last people to see and to describe thegreat Farnese citadel. He saw it both before and during its destruction,and the description which he gives of the building and of the hatredwhich it excited is so vivid that we quote it here at length.[64]

On Trollope’s second visit, that is to say, in 1862, the work ofdemolition was progressing, and an inscription had been placed on thewall of the piazza fronting the former main entrance to the fortress,which struck him as ironically satirical in its simplicity. It statedthat the magistrates of Perugia were removing the fortress raised forthe oppression of the citizens “for the improvement of the prospectfrom the Piazza”! Some time later Trollope returned to Perugia. Thefortress was then being quickly pulled to pieces.

But however great the damage done both to the people and their buildingsby the fortress of the great Farnese, it must be admitted that the Popeat least employed a man of taste to carry out his vast designs. Inbuilding the new walls and knocking down the old, San Gallo leftunharmed some of the finer characteristics of the city. He pulled downall the Baglioni strongholds, he battered down ten churches, and as manyas four hundred houses—indeed, he destroyed a little corner of themediæval town—but he preserved, with a tender carefulness, the churchof the patron saint, S. Ercolano, and one of the first Etruscan gates:the Porta Marzia. As it was not possible to keep the latter in the formof a city gate San Gallo used it as a decoration, building it into thewest wall of the fortress where, as Dennis rightly says, it stillremains, “imprisoned in the brickwork, to be liberated by the shot ofthe next besiegers of Perugia, and looking as much out of place as anancient Etruscan himself would look in the streets of the modern city.”The Porta Marzia is surmounted by the usual frieze of short pillars, butthe statues of four mysterious persons are inserted in the niches. Atradition in Perugia says that these statues are the portraits of aPerugian family who died from eating a large quantity of poisonousfunghi (mushrooms). How this myth originated it is not possible tosay, but the figures with{155} their inscrutable history add a phantom touchto the already phantom portal. They are probably Roman divinities.[65]It is worth getting the doors of the Porta Marzia opened to see thefunny world inside: a whole small town of battered streets, even thefragments of a chapel, and many house-walls still intact.

PORTA MARZIA

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S. Ercolano.

The church of S. Ercolano is built straight against a part of the firstEtruscan walls on the spot where the saint is supposed to have beendecapitated by Totila. It is a strange little church, octagonal and verytall and narrow. The first church is said to have been built as early as1200 and out of the remains of an old amphitheatre, or, as some say, thetemple to Mars, which originally stood on the site. Its early historyis, however, somewhat hazy. In 1600 the church was finally rebuilt byBishop Comitoli, who at once looked about him for some suitable tomb inwhich to place the body of S. Ercolano, which had hitherto had such avery unquiet history. It happened that just at that time a splendidsarcophagus was dug up under the little chapel of S. Orfito at the footof Monte Pacciano. Six skulls and a wooden cross, together with certainlegends connected with some early Christian martyrs and a chapel in thewoods, 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 putit on the altar of his new church, and in it he laid the body of thesaint. The translation of the body from its old abode in the Duomo wasmarked by a magnificent ceremony. The Bishop got up into the pulpit inthe 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 thepeople of Perugia, who came in thousands to attend him.

S. Ercolano, who is purely a local saint like S. Costanzo, plays animportant part in the history of Perugia; he may, indeed, be called thepresiding genius of the city. His history is often confused with that ofa most obscure and highly mythical person{157}

CHURCH OF S. ERCOLANO AND ARCHWAY IN THE ETRUSCAN WALL

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of the same name who was martyred at Perugia in very early days anddevoured by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The shining point in thelife of the second S. Ercolano is the part that he played in the defenceof his city during the siege of Totila. This has endeared him to thehearts of the citizens, and his name is as familiar to the street boysof Perugia as that of S. Ubaldo to the children of Gubbio. Unlike thesaint 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 cutoff his head on a ledge of the Etruscan walls where the present churchnow stands to commemorate his martyrdom.

All sorts of strange ceremonies and religious festivities grew up roundthe worship of this beloved saint, for the Perugians were as religiousas they were warlike, and they delighted in pious displays. Indeed, oneold proverb describes thecredo of the city as consisting of threeP’s:Processione,Persecuzione,Protezione. There were countlessrules and regulations concerning the processions of the various saints.Some had a double procession, or one which extended itself over twodays. On the first of these, the procession started from the house ofthe Saint and proceeded to the Duomo, and on the second the order wasreversed. In the case of S. Ercolano his statue was carried on the firstday from his house with a wooden head upon its shoulders. On the secondday it returned to its abode with a silver head in commemoration of hismartyrdom. So when anybody in Perugia lied or was deceitful, he wasdescribed 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 theFlagellants of Perugia,{160} and some of the finest of these are addressedto S. Ercolano, who, as we have said, exercised a peculiar influenceover the minds and consciences of the Perugians. The outside world madegreat sport of this almost infantine side to the character of thePerugians, and on one occasion the Florentine painter, Buffalmacco, madeuse of it in combination with their other worship, namely, their love offishes, to play a rather hazardous practical joke upon them. Vasarirecounts the history at length:—

The story of Buffalmacco, the saint, and the crown of fishes is comicenough, but the square in which the scene described above was actedwitnessed the deepest human tragedy that the annals of Perugia havepreserved for us. It was just outside the church of S. Ercolano thatGrifonetto Baglioni got his death-wound. Driven back from Porta S.Pietro with only a few men, he prepared to keep the gate of “SanctoErcolano” and there, hopeless of anything save death, he awaited theassault of Gianpaolo. It was here in this place that he fell. DidRaphael come down the street along with the other terror-stricken peopleafter 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 thathe painted later in his picture—“Grifonetto gracious in his person.” Wecannot tell; we only know as a fact that the “Entombment,” now in theBorghese villa at Rome, was ordered by Atalanta Baglioni, and in aletter from Raphael concerning it we see that he was acquainted with herpersonally. It has been suggested to us by a Perugian who is wise in artand history, that Raphael painted a portrait of Grifonetto not in thefigure of Christ as one might naturally suppose, but in the moreprominent{162} figure of the vigorous young man who supports the feet of thedead Saviour. The whole attitude of this figure is one of dauntlessenergy and courage such as one would expect to see in the son of twosuch cousins as Atalanta and Grifone Baglioni.

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

From the steps of S. Ercolano one of the only broad and comparativelyeven streets of the town—the Corso Cavour—leads to the main roadthrough the Porta Romana, down the steep hill to the Tiber and acrossthe plain to join the road to Rome. Most of the history of Perugia hascome and gone along this road; it was here that the popes made theirtriumphal entries, here probably that the barbarians forced a passage,and here, even in our own days, that Perugia suffered a final and apainful siege from Rome. It was on the of 20th of June 1859 that theSwiss guard fought its way along it, burning down the houses and beatingback as they advanced the ill-organised body of inhabitants. Strangethrilling details of that day have been told to us by people who werepresent. One inhabitant, a mere boy then, was up with his parents at thetop of their house in the Corso Cavour, but smelling smoke in the shopbelow they crept downstairs to see what might be happening, and foundthe Pope’s guard foraging amongst their medicine bottles. The mother andboy fled back up the stairs, but the father was caught and carried outinto the street to be shot. Then the small boy leaned from the window,covering his face with a scarf, and pleaded so passionately for hisfather’s life that the Swiss soldiers spared him and passed to moreprofitable pursuits further up in the town. (We hear that they werefilled with so great a lust for blood that they even wrung the neck of atame falcon in the Piazza Sopramuro!) Another gentleman who had come inwith the Pope’s guard gave us some details of the{163} siege, and amongstthem he told us of a certain priest at S. Pietro, who, thinking to killthe leader of the troops, shot at the drum-major, whose magnificentappearance would no doubt make him remarkable to a quiet monk. Theunfortunate priest was shot for his pains up in the square on thefollowing morning.[67]

The Corso Cavour has a very modern look about it. Most of its bigbuildings are used as barracks, but some few of the old are left. ThePalazzo Bracceschi has a fine old outside staircase and a goodcollection of pictures, amongst them an exquisite Madonna and childattributed to Filippo Lippi, but more like a Neri di Bicci, also somefine 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 findsso often in Italian cities—a great idea dwarfed, not by want ofinspiration, but by the need of money to complete it. The church as wenow see it is merely a patchwork of the first architect’s originalconception. It was begun{164} early in the fourteenth century from designsby Giovanni Pisano, but it was not finished till 1459. The building owedmuch of its splendour to a young man of Perugia, Cristiano Armanni, who,whilst studying at Bologna, had been converted to the faith by thepreaching of S. Domenico. Cristiano returned from the university in thesociety of a certain S. Niccolò of Calabria, and induced his parents andhis friends to give him money for the new church which was about to bebuilt to honour S. Domenico. The magistrates of Perugia contributed abanner to the cause, and they decided that wherever S. Niccolò mightplace this banner, there the new church should be built. He planted itnear 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 thechoir and the middle nave fell through in 1614, but Bishop Comitolidetermined to rebuild it on the original design. He spent more than 4000scudi on this generous act and was as ill-rewarded as the most patientbuilder of card-castles ever was, for the whole of his work collapsedfor the second time. It was finally rebuilt on the designs of CarloMaderno, in 1632. But all this tinkering has left very sorry scars, andeven the tower outside has not been spared. It was begun later than therest of the church and was not finished till about the end of thefourteenth century, when Paul III. at once had the top of it knocked offbecause he declared that the monks of S. Domenico could, from theircampanile, look down and spy upon the building of his fortress!

One or two relics alone remain of the many beautiful bits of art withwhich the church was rich in early days. Of these the tomb of PopeBenedict XI. is the most fascinating.

Of the life of Benedict there is not much to say; his reign covered aperiod of only eight months, and{165} perhaps his greatest glory is in histomb. He was a native of Treviso and belonged to the Dominican order. In1304 he, like other popes and tired people, came to Perugia in search ofthe peace he could not find in Rome, and there, in that same year, hedied. When in Perugia his mother came to see him—a thing which had onlyonce happened to a pope before.

Pope Benedict was anxious to make peace between the Bianchi and Neri ofFlorence, and received from some of the heads of the Guelph factions avisit of state in his residence at Perugia. Twelve of them, headed byCorso Donato, came with all their suite behind them: one hundred andfifty horses we hear, and many friends and relatives. No satisfactoryagreement was arranged, and shortly afterwards this holy but powerlessPope 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 poisonedfigs.

DETAIL OF THE TOMB OF POPE BENEDICT XI. IN THE CHURCH OFS. DOMENICO

Some say that Benedict was poisoned because of the ill-feeling of theFlorentines towards him, and others that he died by the jealous hand ofPhilippe le Bel of France. The historians of the present day deny thefact of poison at all. Be these matters as they may, the fact of thedead pope’s tomb remains—an entrancing bit of human workmanship. It wasmade by Giovanni Pisano, son of the great Niccola, “who first breathedlife, with the breath of genius, into the dead forms of plastic art.”Pope Benedict lies asleep; stretched out quite flat and thin in hisexquisitely folded robes; there is a canopy over him with{167} curtainsstrung across it and two angels have drawn the curtain back to gaze atthe figure of the dead man. The columns of the tomb were filled up oncewith precious mosaics, but during Napoleon’s occupation of Perugia, aregiment of men and horse were quartered in the church of S. Domenico,and the French soldiers are said to have employed their leisure hours inpicking out these treasures with their pen-knives. Perhaps it was thesesame thoughtless beings who wilfully mutilated the exquisite figures ofchildren, fragments of which are still left clinging to the spiralcurves.

The terra-cotta decorations in the chapel of the Rosario are the work ofAgostino Ducci—the Florentine sculptor who made the lovely front of S.Bernardino, (see chapter viii.), and they would be interesting if onlyfor that reason. Though mutilated in parts, and spoilt by carelesswhite-wash, much of the detail is still charming; notably the threelittle angels over the central arch. As for the rest of the church ithas but little interest now-a-days. The immense Gothic window of thechoir is said to be the largest in Italy, but the original glass isentirely gone from its frame. The whole has been carefully restored bySignor Moretti of Perugia. The stalls are covered with good intarsiawork, but they have been greatly spoiled by careless restoration, andhave a naked and forsaken look about them. S. Domenico is one of thosepathetic buildings which leave upon one’s mind the feeling of arresteddecay, and one hurries gladly from it and out into the sunlight of thestreet.

S. Pietro.

Very different in every way is the church of S. Pietro, which onereaches after passing through the gate of Porta Romana. “The Basilica ofS. Pietro{168} is so adorned with beauties,” says its faithful, but perhapstoo fond, biographer, “that it would suffer and be overburdened wereothers added to it.” The praise is certainly high, but it has a certaingrain of truth, and the church of S. Pietro, is, amongst the churches ofPerugia, a jewel of inestimable price, for unlike all the others it hasbeen 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 Capraioor Calvary, which stretches away to the south of the town. They form thefirst object which catches the eye as one approaches the city on theline from Rome; they serve as a sure landmark from many distant pointsof Umbria, and one cannot stay long in the city without becomingsincerely attached to the beautiful group of pale brick buildings,crowned by their graceful campanile, which catch the sunrise and thesunset 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 itwas the first cathedral. We hear that the earliest Christians of Perugiaused 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 hislittle flock together to “feed them with the milk of the holy word ofGod.” We know that the present basilica was built by a certain Abbot,Pietro Vincioli, a monk of the Benedictine order, who lived in the tenthcentury, and was a great friend of the Emperor Otto III. Bonazzi gives adelightful description of this Abbot and of his method of building{169} andthe miracles he employed for the purpose. It seems that Pietro wasfamous for his great sanctity and learning, and that he lived at a timewhen everybody imagined that the world was about to come to an end:

Just as the Abbot had built his church in 963—a beautiful barebasilica, with colonnades, and naked raftered roof—so she remained tillwell down into the fifteenth century, waiting, as it were, for theraiment of the Renaissance to clothe her with fresh glories. Thengradually, first by the roofing of the ceiling, then by pictures,chapels, the enlargement of the sacristy and choir, and such things ofrare 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 wasan evil day in which some person ruined the original façade by addingthe courtyard and the{170} cloisters. In old times the campanile stood freeof the church, and the front of the church had strange figures andfrescoes on it, parts of which can still be seen by penetrating a darkpassage under the bell-tower at the back of the little sacristy. (SeeBonfigli’s fresco, p. 243.)

The history of the campanile of S. Pietro is a study in itself. Thismost lovely and unfortunate tower was for ever suffering at the hands ofman or else the elements. Its chronicler is unable to discover the dateof its first erection, but he tells us that it was probably built on thesite of an old Etruscan tomb, which even now forms its basement. Theearliest written record of the campanile is dated 1347, at which time weare told that it was so elegant, and so very richly adorned, that anearly historian thought it to be the “loveliest in Tuscany,” yet acertain war-like Abbot, Fra Guidalotti, a man “who rather inclined tothe affairs of war than the discipline of religion, with a view maybe toconvert his campanile into a fortress, that it might thus better servehis war-like spirit,” began to claw it down. He got as far as the firstobelisk, and in his evil operations he tumbled down the metal statue ofthe Saint which once adorned the summit. The engaging work of the Abbotwas taken up and continued by Pope Boniface IX., who, in 1393, spent 180florins in turning the gracious tower into a strong fortress! In 1468the campanile was rebuilt by the monks at the great cost of 4000florins, but some years later it was struck by lightning and muchinjured. “From this point onward,” writes its historian, “the history ofthe tower can only be traced through one continuous series of repairs,which injury from lightning necessitated.” These injuries were of such asort and so continuous that finally the building showed signs ofapproaching ruin. Iron clamps were added, but the lightning{171} continuedto attack it. At last someone had the wisdom to put up lightningconductors, since when the tower is safe, and one of the loveliestpoints in the landscape is secured for us.

A door festooned with splendid garlands of fruit, carved deep in creamymarbles, leads from the courtyard into the church. The interior isheavily decorated, but though some of the pictures are far from good,the impression given by the whole is beautiful and pleasing; and thechoir, which was added in 1400, is one of the loveliest things of itskind in Italy. The columns of the nave are some of the remains of theonly pagan temple which was left in Perugia after the siege of Augustus(see S. Angelo, chapter vii.). With the exception of Perugino’s greataltar-piece, S. Pietro has preserved nearly all the pictures which werepainted for it. Amongst these is a goodPietà by Perugino (perhaps oneof the panels out of the big picture at S. Agostino). There are threelarge canvases by Vasari in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament, a paintingby Eusebio di S. Giorgio of the Adoration of the Magi on the walloutside and a picture by Guido Reni in the chapel of theAnnunciation.[68] At the end of the left transept is aPietà byBonfigli. “Cette Piété incorrecte et pieuse,” as M. Broussole describesit. The picture hangs in a bad light between the Vibi chapel and thedoor, and at first only the white naked figure of Christ shines out onthe dark blue gown of the virgin; but looking a little longer we findourselves in the study of S. Jerome: one of those enchanting rooms whichthis particular saint inevitably inhabits, neat and exquisite in thearrangement of its benches and{172} its lectern. Our Lady of Pity is sittingthere, holding the dead figure of her son and kissing his head upon hershoulder. To her right is a figure of S. Leonard, to the left, andwholly unconscious of the tragedy, S. Jerome sits, smiling a littleslyly. There is beautiful intarsia work (older than that in the choir)on the walls of the sacristy, and some fine illuminated books; lowerdown the church in the right transept, a beautiful bit of work bySalimbene of Siena, and on the last wall a fine picture of the school ofPerugino, very rich and bright in colour. The two Alfanis have leftample specimens of their art in S. Pietro, and there are several ofSassoferrato’s copies of great masterpieces. But the greatest treasureof the church, like those of S. Lorenzo and S. Agostino, did not escapethe terrible eye of Napoleon Bonaparte. Perugino’s great Assumption,which formed the glory of the high altar, is gone to France. Only six ofthe saints, battered and cut from their frames, linger like unhappyghosts on the walls of the sacristy.

The altar in the chapel of the Vibi and Baglioni families is a lovelybit of Mino da Fiesole’s work. Vasari accuses this sweet-souled sculptorof a lack of originality—of a desire to copy the sentiment of hismaster (Desiderio da Settignano) rather than to draw straight forhimself from the sources of nature. Be this as it may in the case ofMino’s portraits of people, those of his flowers in this particularpiece of work are strangely realistic. We think he must himself havegathered and bound the garlands which hang from the narrow frieze, andin doing so he took for models the sharpest and the prickliest fruitsand leaves of autumn: hazel nuts and tiny fir cones, their points justtipped with gold. The halos, too, on the angels’ heads, their wings, andthe 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{173} blood-stained hands and hearts of those same menwho came to tell their beads here and be buried.

Long after other details in the church have been forgotten, its choirwill remain a haunting vision of excessive beauty. Every inch of it isworked with exquisite care and finish, for the monks spared no pains ormoney, either in its construction or its decoration. Although a piece ofthe purest Renaissance fancy, it does not clash with the lines of theolder basilica, and the two little pulpits of pietra serena, with theirrich gilding, the organ lofts and the rather rococo frescoes on theceiling, seem only to harmonise the meeting of the different styles ofbuilding. Raphael is said to have designed the stalls, but there is nosort of document to prove this. “Because our choir is the work of agenius, it does not follow that that genius should be Raphael ... geniusis not the possession of one sole person,” pleads M. Cassinese. Raphaeldied in 1520, the present stalls were not finished till 1535, and theyare probably almost entirely the work of Stefano da Bergamo and the menand boys whom the Bergamasque employed. Some few may be of an earlierdate, for we know that the choir was begun in 1524, and that the workwas interrupted by the same terrible pestilence as that which killedPerugino. In 1532, Stefano da Bergamo undertook the work of the choir.He worked steadily, and the monks of S. Pietro kept the most accurateaccount of what they paid him, and of how many measures of flour andpence they gave the men and boys whom he employed. Little is known ofthe life of Stefano da Bergamo; we do not even know from whom he learnedhis art, but M. Cassinese rightly concludes that he drew his inspirationfrom the divine Raphael, since his designs are purely Raphaelesque. Thecarving is unequal, and some of the stalls are{174} infinitely lovelier thanothers. Note the ninth on the right of the choir: a mother and threechildren encircled by a heavy garland of fruit and flowers, and underthem a child, with flying hair, playing with snakes. Note, too, theextraordinary rows of mythical beasts which lie upon the arms of thelower row of stalls; catch them in perspective one evening in thedusk—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 areintarsia work, and show a most delightful fancy. They have unfortunatelybeen much polished and restored; still what a jewel this panel is, whichis said to represent the finding of Moses! Compare the banks of the Nilewith this palace and this pleasaunce of the purest Renaissance. Itsbulrushes are turned to pergolas, its pyramids to a maze of pillars andof marble terraces, and there is a bear in the foreground eating honey,a crane, a rabbit, a long-eared goat, and other beasts of singulardelight. It is strange to think of Fra Damiano sitting in his rooms atBologna and preparing these same decorative panels for a place which,maybe, he had never seen. Above the doors is a fresco attributed toGiannicola Manni(?), and when the doors open you step out straight upona little balcony, and down below lies the Umbrian plain, without a breakof 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 4thof August, a native architect undertook to put the carvings in theirplaces. He worked so steadily that on Christmas Eve of that same year,“at the first vespers of the feast, the choir was solemnly inauguratedin a musical mass sung by the friars.”{175}

What a picture we have—the dull light of the candles on the wintermorning and the monks singing together, in the midst of all theirbeautiful new woodwork!

A curious incident is told in connection with the choir of S. Pietro andthree citizens of Perugia. When on the 20th of June 1859, the papaltroops entered Perugia, a detachment of them were quartered in thechurch and monastery of S. Pietro, after the town had been seized, andthree gentlemen of Perugia who had been fighting for her liberty at thegates found themselves cut off from the town and surrounded by the Swissguard, who, however, were not conscious of their presence, in themonastery of S. Pietro. It will be remembered that the monks of S.Pietro, on this occasion, sided with the citizens, and one of them, FraSanto, hustled the three gentlemen up into a little cupboard in theorgan-loft where he kept them concealed for three whole days, feedingthem, as best he could, with a little bread and water. One othergentleman, who was concealed in another part of the church, managed toescape under cover of certain dust-pans belonging to the friars, withwhich 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 thegentlemen in the organ, and a most diligent search was set on foot.However, the little cupboard escaped notice for the time, and on themorning of the fourth day of their confinement, whilst the Papal guardwere getting their pay, Fra Santo and another monk took from the stallsthe 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 thethree gentlemen from the organ, who clambered down the ropes, and wavingadieu to their benefactors, scampered off as quickly as they couldacross the open country. Five hours later the Pope’s guard went up intothe organ, but even then{176} they failed to discover the cupboard whencetheir enemies had so lately flown!

When, some time later, the monks of S. Pietro went to Rome to beg thePope’s pardon for the part they had played against him in the siege ofPerugia, the heaviest blame fell, of course, on Fra Santo; but hisHoliness with extreme good sense thus put an end to the question: “IfFra Santo has done what you tell me he has, God has willed that heshould do so, and we must ever respect the will of God.”

There are one or two lovely bits of della Robbia work in the refectoryof the monastery, a fresco by Tiberio d’Assisi(?) in the chapel, and afine 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 placeswhere popes and monks and men of learning spent such pleasant and suchprofitable hours. The place is now occupied by students as the wholeconvent 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, hasbecome the patron saint of lovers, and on his feast day all the loversof the neighbourhood assemble at the shrine. If the eye of S. Costanzoblinks at the young man or the girl who kneel before his image, theyfeel a happy certainty that the course of their affection will runsmooth, and that the year will end in happy union.

S. Costanzo was converted to the Christian faith by S. Ercolano I., whomhe succeeded as bishop of Perugia, and Ciatti gives us a long list ofhis virtues and his miracles. The blind of the city received their{177}sight from him, we hear, and the lame were made to walk. But all hismiracles and his conversions made him an object of hatred to the pagans,and one day he was seized together with his followers, and thrown intoprison. They were then put into scalding baths, “but,” says Ciatti, “theHoly Ghost, who filled their souls with fire, tempered the externalheat, and they sang hymns to signify their great tranquillity.” Theironly discomfort lay in the darkness all around them, but soon “awonderful brightness appeared unto them from heaven which comforted themexceedingly.” Then the pagans continued their tortures and forced theSaint to walk on burning embers, but as these did him no harm he wasstripped and covered with red hot coals; and all the time he went onsinging much to the annoyance of his tormentors. Finally he and hisfollowers made their escape and fled to Spello, where fresh conversions,followed by fresh tortures, are recounted. At last, in 154A.D., he methis death at Spoleto. His body was taken back to Perugia by a certainServiano da Foligno, who found it “surrounded by a choir of rejoicingangels, and in a shroud of heavenly light. The holy burden was too heavyfor Serviano to carry alone, and he called on two men who were passingby to help him. At first they refused and scoffed at the miracles herelated, whereupon they were both struck blind, and trembling, theyprayed for mercy to the God of the Christians. On touching the body ofthe Saint they received their sight, whereat they gladly helped to carryit into Perugia. They entered by Porta S. Pietro, and were met by manyof the faithful.” The body of S. Costanzo is buried in the little churchoutside the Porta S. Pietro, rebuilt by the present Pope, and thebeautiful byzantine doorway seems a fit entrance to the tomb of thissuffering and much tormented martyr of Perugia.{178}

CHAPTER VII

THE Piazza del Papa[69] lies a little to the right of the entrance doorto 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 thestatue of Pope Julius occupied a splendid position on the steps of thecathedral. But during the great revolt against the Papacy in 1780 thePope’s statue was taken away from its prominent place by some wisepersons who foresaw its destruction should they allow it to remainthere, and it was bundled into the cellar of a tavern in the town, whereit remained, not, it must be confessed, entirely incognito, tillpeople’s nerves had calmed a little.[70] Not so very long ago the Popewas once more brought to the light of day and set in his presentposition.

Pope Julius III. is a great figure in Perugian history. He is in a sensea 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 thePerugians. Julius succeeded Paul III., and though he by no means didaway with the supreme power of the{179}

HOUSE IN THE VIA PERNICE

Church in the city, still he mitigated many of the hardships and theignominies which that power had entailed in the hands of the greatFarnese. When Paul III. died in 1549 his fortress remained as a legacyto the city,{180} with a Castellano to watch over its (Papal) interests.This man proceeded to rule as his master had taught him, and he defendedthe castle vigilantly against the Pope’s nephew, who made some effortsto gain possession of so rich a prize.

The policy of Julius III. was of a much milder order. “Julius had alwaysloved our city with a peculiar partiality,” says Mariotti, “and he senthis relation Cardinal della Corgna hither, endowing him with fullauthority, and hardly had the Cardinal arrived than he restored to thecity the arms of which she had been deprived so long; and in February ofthat same year Julius III. sent a brief to the holders of ecclesiasticalliberty, which was addressed to thePriori delle Arte (heads of CityGuilds), a title which had not been heard of in Perugia since 1539; andto this grace the same Pope added considerable sums of money for themaintenance of those same magistrates....”

It will be easy to anyone who has formed even a dim conception of whatthe strength of the spirit of liberty was like in the minds of thePerugians to understand the pure sensation of delight which the Pope’sopen acknowledgment of their old municipal rule, followed as it was by amessage couched in such friendly terms, was likely to produce. Frettingas the citizens had been for many years under the rule of the despoticPaul, they hailed his more temperate successor as a sort of saviour, andthey determined to express their sentiments of joy in what Bonazzi fitlyterms “a day of political bacchanalia.”[71]

Not satisfied with this demonstration of their delight and loyaltytoward the new Pope, the Perugians determined to commemorate theoccasion through the medium of art. They commissioned Adone Doni topaint the above described scene of the reinstatement of the magistrates(see the picture in the Palazzo Pubblico), whilst Vincenzo Danti, then amere 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 eternallyblessing the city always excites a sense of something false andcontradictory, and had we been permitted to visit the benevolent Juliusin the caverns of the wine shop, we should have felt him in that placeto be a truer symbol of the spirit of the town throughout her troubledhistory.

S. Severo.

From the Piazza del Papa several roads branch off to different points ofthe town. To the right the Via{182} Bontempi leads down past some beautifulold palaces into a network of typical Perugian streets. The churches ofS. Fiorenzo, the Carmine, and S. Maria Nuova, all of which havegonfaloni or banners by Bonfigli, lie in this direction, and are verywell worth visiting. Indeed, thegonfalone in S. Maria Nuova isextraordinarily interesting: a typical specimen of that tragic andalmost passionate form of art which arose out of, and answered to, theneeds of a people convinced of its own moral depravity (see p.232). Tothe left of the Via Bontempi a narrow street winds steeply up the hillto 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, andaway across the valley of the Tiber to Assisi. “It is asserted by somepersons,” says Siepi, “that in the year 1007 a little colony ofCamaldolese monks was transferred to the city of Perugia, who, duringthe lifetime of their holy founder, took up their abode on the hill ofS. Severo, and here, upon the ruins of an ancient temple, which somebelieve was dedicated to the sun god, and upon a spot which might betermed the Acropolis of Perugia, they built their church, and dedicatedit to S. Severo, Bishop of Ravenna, probably because they came intoPerugia from that same city.” As to whether the church of S. Severo wasreally built on the site of an old pagan temple dedicated to the sun godwe cannot say; it is certain that this whole quarter of the town iscalled Porta Sole, but, however it be, the church of the Camaldolesemonks has been quite altered in the course of centuries, and, except forits position and its fresco, it has not much to charm the casualtourist. During later restorations the outer porch with Raphael’s andPerugino’s fresco was preserved, and built into a little chapel, wherewe see it now. The fresco is signed 1505, so Raphael was no longer aboy{183} when he painted it. Some years later he painted his great picturesin the Stanze of the Vatican, and, perhaps, he was feeling his way tothese grand compositions when he drew his semi-circle of saints on thewalls of the little old church of S. Severo. Did the master Peruginowatch his brilliant pupil as he painted? There is a touch of pathos inthe facts which follow:—Raphael the mighty genius dies, and Rome goesinto mourning for him; fourteen or fifteen years go by, and Perugino,who, be it remembered, was not a young man when the slim youth fromUrbino came one day into his studio and asked to learn the art ofpainting from him, comes back to the spot where Raphael’s fresco shinesupon the wall, and paints, in his most faded style, the six pale saintswhich we now see below it....

Porta Sole.

But to return once more to the piazza. Another road leads up immediatelybehind the statue of Pope Julius to one of the most surprising points inthe city, namely, the bastions of Porta Sole. It was to this high point,which commands an extraordinary view over the north of the town, thatDante alluded when writing of Perugia:

Porta Sole is mixed up with a strange and a most typical bit of Perugianhistory. We have seen how much this city was influenced by the popes,and how,{184} in the many fluctuations of her history, she nearly alwaysreturned to the nominal rule of the Church of Rome. Early in thefourteenth century she broke away for a time from Papal power, but in1370 again swore allegiance to Pope Urban IV., who sent his brother,Cardinal Albano, to receive the act of submission from her people. Thefollowing year the Cardinal of Jerusalem came to Perugia to establishpeace between the nobles and theRaspanti. He was escorted by about500 horsemen and 300 infantry, and the people received him withenthusiasm, coming out to meet him with palms in their hands, and criesof “Viva Santa Madre Chiesa, eviva il Signore!” Unfortunately his wiserule lasted but a year, and he was succeeded by a very different sort ofperson, namely, the Abbot of Mommaggiore from Cluny (see p.30), whoarrived in Perugia in a most hostile frame of mind, and quite preparedfor war and for revolts of every kind. The Abbot at once set to work tobuild for himself fortresses, the like of which, as one proud chroniclerrelates, had never before been seen in Italy. He erected a massivecitadel at Porta Sole, and in order to be in connection with the Palazzodei Priori he made a covered passage with high machicolated walls tojoin the two together. In doing this he did not scruple to knock down alarge part of the cathedral which happened to come in his way. At PortaS. Antonio, too, the Abbot built some large and splendid houses, part ofwhich may still be seen, and these he joined by means of a coveredpassage to the other citadel on Porta Sole. Thus Mommaggiore may be saidto have had a run over half the city of Perugia. So beautiful andluxurious were his palaces at S. Antonio, that we are told they seemed averitable paradise. In them he stored enough wine and flour and otherthings to last him and his French{185} companions for at least ten years,and not content with all these preparations for a possible revolt of thecitizens, he even called in the help of an Englishcondottiere, SirJohn Hawkwood, who was at that time in the service of the Church, tocome and ravage all the country round Perugia.

The Perugians looked on in silence, and in silence they planned adesperate plan of revolution, for they were determined to resist thisabominable French Abbot and to assert their former authority. Silently,and with bowed heads, they watched the Abbot’s troops scouring thestreets on the evening of the 12th December 1375; and not till night hadfallen on the town did a hum arise. Then deep growling sounds rangthrough the darkness of the night, and the tyrant, sitting in hispalace, knew that the men of the town were up, and that a mightymischief was preparing. Down in the Porta S. Angelo the cry of “Viva ilPopolo” was heard, and with one accord, little and great, nobles andpeople, forgetting private injuries and discords, and moved by a singlepurpose, clasping hands and crying, “Viva il Popolo, and death to theAbbot and the pastors of the Church,” rushed into the piazza just as thesun had risen. The terrified Abbot, seeing that the people were about tostorm the Palazzo Pubblico, fled with his friends and soldiers along thecovered passages to his palace at S. Antonio. The furious citizens werequick to follow and arrived before the fortress with all sorts ofinfernal machines, amongst others a large catapult which hurled forthstones of such a size and with such excellent effect that it receivedthe name ofCacciaprete (Kick out the priests). We hear of a greatbattle which took place when the Abbot, being besieged in his citadel,was forced to implore the help of Sir John Hawkwood;{186} but the latter,having been well bribed by the Perugians, abandoned his unfortunatepatron, leaving him, surrounded night and day by a crowd of angrycitizens, to meditate upon the various fortunes of war. At last,however, a peace was concluded, and Sir John Hawkwood arrived at thehead of 300 lancers[72] to escort the Abbot, his French friends, and his1500 horse and soldiers safe beyond the city. The Perugians, seeingtheir enemy the Abbot arrayed in heavy armour and hardly able to lifthis feet, slipping moreover at every turn upon the muddy ground, salutedhim with shrill whistles, which even the mighty Hawkwood was unable tosuppress, and a chronicler devoutly tells us that “thus in the name ofGod, of His holy Mother Mary, and of the blessed Saints: Ercolano,Lorenzo, and Costanzo, was the city of Perugia delivered from the handsof those accursed pastors of the Church.” The happy event was celebratedby grand religious functions, although the revolt had been entirelyagainst the temporal power of the Pope. Even Milan and Florence rejoicedat the news, and ambassadors from Siena and from Arezzo came to Perugiato grace the feasts and the rejoicings with their presence. “Prioriand treasurers of the Republic, doctors, nobles,Raspanti, andBeccherini, danced for a whole week, day and night, in friendlyconcord, and there were fireworks and much sound of music.”

These things were done at Porta Sole in the past. The Abbot’s palacesand covered passages were well-nigh battered to bits by the revengefulcitizens, but the charm of the small piazza has not vanished with them.Looking from the bastions one still can trace a portion of the coveredpassage by which the terror-stricken Abbot fled at sunrise to hispalaces at Porta Sant’ Antonio; and on winter evenings we have oftenstood{187} there, watching, with an ever fresh delight, the brown roofs ofthe slumbering town below—the brown woods of the browner Apenninesbeyond; and seen them fade and gather into one harmonious whole just asthey did five hundred years ago, when Mommaggiore sat at supper andheard the first low hum of revolution.

From the piazza of Porta Sole a steep paved road or staircase leads downto the Piazza Grimani, and here one is confronted by what is perhaps themost remarkable point in the whole city, namely, the Arch ofAugustus.[73]

Arch of Augustus.

In Dennis’ admirable account of Perugia he gives a full description ofthis arch:—

The history of the arch of Augustus, orPorta urbica etrusca, has beengiven again and again by local and by foreign guide-books andhistorians, 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 Etruscanwalls in another part of his book, Dennis remarks that one of their moststriking features is the apparent newness of the stone. The big blocksof travertine on the Arco d’Augusto are as sharp almost as on the daywhen the Etruscans brought them up the hill, something like threethousand years ago, the marks of the individual masons are perfectlyclear upon their faces, and time has mellowed the light and gracefulcolonnade of the Renaissance and Roman architecture, as much or morethan that of the vanished people.

For a vivid first impression of the city one should certainly enter itfrom its northern side, and pass at once into its grim, dark, mediævalstreets, through these splendid early portals. The usual approach fromthe station, which is certainly no quicker and much{189} more tedious, givesnothing like the same impression of the real Perugia, which we love toread about and study.

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. Thewhole of the Borgo S. Angelo, which spreads away to the north of{190} thepiazza, though enclosed by very early walls, is not part of the firstcity of Perugia, and is indeed a little city of its own with one mainstreet, 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 itswonderful choir—one of those choirs which, by its exquisite variety ofdesign and transformation of the wood to beasts, delights and fascinatesone.

The choir was made in 1502, and, as Mariotti, who describes it atlength, remarks, it is “indeed worthy of praise.” Perugino himselfsupplied the designs, which were carried out by his Florentine friendBaccio 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 beendespoiled of its best treasures. We read a long list of its earlypictures; the crowning glory of these, the large and many-sidedaltar-piece by Perugino, was pulled to bits and scattered during theNapoleonic raids. The history of this great altar-piece has been tracedwith extraordinary precision, and as it throws some light on the ways ofthe painter we give a sketch of it here. It seems that in the autumn of1502 the indefatigable Pietro signed a contract in which he promised topaint his “Sposalizio” for the Duomo, three other smaller pictures,designs for the stalls of S. Agostino, and finally an immense two-sidedaltar-piece for that same church. As may easily be imagined the{191}

S. AGOSTINO AND PORTA BULAGAJO

{192}

{193}

carrying out of this colossal contract was no light matter, and itdragged on for years during which time Perugino did not hesitate toembark on several other works; and, not at all abashed by his own lackof faith in promises, we find him writing to the friars of S. Agostinofrom 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 givesome corn to one of his protégés, bearer of the letter (see Pinacoteca).The letter is dated March 30, 1512. The next we hear of the picture isin the autumn of 1521 when there is a question about payment whichproves that the work was finished. It is not an easy matter toreconstruct this picture, but we have seen the plan of it in a veryearly manuscript which shows a grand pile of frame and canvasses much inthe style of Pinturicchio’s altar-piece in the Pinacoteca. Of all itsmany parts Perugia has only kept a few of the saints, the Baptism, theNativity and thePietà(?). We read of scattered fragments in suchdifferent towns as Grenoble, Toulouse, Lyons, and Nantes. The Madonnaherself, 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 witha white rabbit in the foreground. Looking one day at the picture wewondered vaguely why the rabbit had been painted there: “Ma, perbellezza,” hazarded the small son of the sacristan with the delightfulintuition peculiar to the children of his nation. No doubt he wasperfectly right. Another good fresco by Perugino or his scholars may befound, strangely enough, in the back passage of a baker’s shop a littlefarther up the Via Longara; but before leaving the church of S. Agostinoit would be well to look at the splendid meeting-room of theConfraternità next door to it. This room, like that at{194} S. Francesco, isa magnificent specimen of rather heavy and sumptuous Renaissancewood-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 findin the history of Perugia is that this temple was the only buildingwhich escaped the fire kindled by Caius Cestius (see p.10). The churchis probably built on the site of some old Etruscan temple, but in itspresent state it bears only a phantom resemblance to the form of itsfirst architecture. Some say that the early temple was dedicated to Pan,more likely it was a temple to Venus or Vulcan. Conestabile declaresthat three distinct periods of building can be traced in it, and hesuggests that the original temple was pulled down and rebuilt byignorant early Christians with the ruins of another temple dedicated toFlora. The pillars are certainly of different sizes and very differentqualities of stone. Some few are of Greek marble, and one has anEtruscan capital; yet in Fergusson’s description of S. Angelo he saysthat “the materials are apparently original and made for the place theyoccupy;” he also suggests that the church was originally used as abaptistery, or may have been dedicated to some martyr, “but in the heartof Etruria,” he adds, “this form may have been adopted for otherreasons, the force of which we are hardly able at present to appreciate;though in all cases locality is one of the strongest influencing powersas far as architectural forms are concerned.” In the first form of theChristian 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 newbasilica, and in those times the third circle stood open to the air{195}

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 baldachinostands to-day. The small square pillar with the Latin inscription wasprobably{196} moved from its place, and turned to the north at the timewhen, as a local writer fitly says, “the architecture of S. Angelo wasburdened by so many bagatelles and such a profusion of false ornament.”Among other late Christian “ornaments” in S. Angelo we must mention thebody 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 charmus. The Saint is dressed in tawdry armour, but his face and limbs areexquisitely fine, his expression pure and very peaceful. His hair islong, the skin of his face waxen, he seems to be merely sleeping. One ofthe very earliest Umbrian frescoes of Perugia, “La Madonna del Verde,”is painted in a chapel to the right. The whole building is a remarkablemixture of early pagan, of Roman, and of Christian art, and we can onlyregret that the last should have been added later, and in its worst andmost 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 orportcullis put up in time of war by acondottiere! It needed theUmbrian sky, it required the Umbrian landscape to make of such strangecontrasts an harmonious whole. Yet S. Angelo is one of those thingswhich at once possesses men’s fancy, and we read that even in the middleages fantastic legends centred round it, and that the early writersbelieved it to be the “pavilion of Orlando.”

Having, in this chapter, run through some few historical facts relatingto a Pope, an Abbot, two Umbrian painters and a pagan temple, we may aswell complete the medley with one or two calm records of the Umbriansaints. Leaving the church of S. Angelo one passes back to the streetand out through the Porta S. Angelo into the open country.{197} The gate ishalf a castle, and was built by Fortebraccio when he was strengtheningthe 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. wasstaying at Perugia, the enthusiasm for saint Francis of Assisi was atits height, and the Pope with all his court went down across the plainto visit the quiet dwelling-place of the gentle Christ-like teacher:“And the friars of S. Francis,” says Mariotti, “beheld many counts andcavaliers and other noble gentlemen, and a great number of Cardinals,Bishops, Abbots and different clergy, who all came down to see the largebut humble congregation of S. Francis.” And then the Saint returned thevisit, and coming in person to call upon the Pope in order to obtainindulgences for his new church of the Angeli, it happened that as hepassed through the Porta S. Angelo he met with S. Domenico who himselfwas hurrying in the same direction. They met each other in thearchway—these two founders of great religious orders—“and with theirusual charity they embraced each other.” The picture is beautiful andstriking indeed: maybe a hot May morning, and the two men, who more thanmost on earth had overcome themselves and elevated the souls of othermen, staying to embrace in a quiet, homely fashion before passingfurther 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 monasteryof S. Francesco al Monte. We hear that the place was endowed in thefollowing manner: “It happened that a rich gentleman,{198} Giacomo diBuonconti de’ Coppoli, who, in his houses of Monteripido,” (the hill onwhich the present convent stands) “was wont most tenderly to entertainthe blessed brother Egidio, delighted beyond power of description in theecstatic trances of that Saint; and having become a widower, by thedeath of Donna Vita, who died childless, Messer Giacomo took holyorders, and in his will he ordered that his houses should be turned intothe convent of S. Francesco al Monte which was therefore built in 1276by the Minori Osservanti.” We may conclude that Fra Egidio, who was oneof the most fascinating followers of S. Francis, long outlived hisardent worshipper, for we hear that he spent a great deal of his time inthe 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 takenback to Assisi to die and be buried in the home of his loved leader; butthe Perugians, although they simply idolized him, refused him this lastcomfort. They forced him to die in their midst so that they might havehis corpse and profit by the miracles that they expected would be workedby it. They gave him a beautiful tomb at last, which may now be seen inthe 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 beautifullyproportioned on its hill top. Tall lines of slender cypress trees guardeither side of the steep ascent or “sacro monte” which leads to it. Wecannot explore the cells; the little church is bare, its Peruginoaltar-piece and other pictures gone, like the rest, to the Pinacoteca;but sitting on the grass-grown steps we may read one of the mostdelightful and{199} ingenuous stories ever told about either Perugia or thefollowers of S. Francis:—

Then we hear that the monks in the convent arose and murmured together,and questioned Fra Egidio about the mysterious guest with whom he hadstayed so long in close embrace, and Fra Egidio told them very simplythat it had been the King of France. Then they upbraided him for hisdiscourtesy towards so great a man: “O Fra Egidio, wherefore hast thoubeen so rude as never to have spoken even one syllable to so devout aKing who came all the way from France that he might see thee, and hearfrom thee some holy words?” And Fra Egidio answers them with thechild-like and unruffled candour peculiar to his order, and begs themnot to marvel at the mutual silence of that meeting,{200}

So King Louis of France went out across the Umbrian hills, the UmbrianSaint returned to his cell, and Perugia added a new and splendid numberto her list of royal visitors. Probably this story, be it a myth or beit truth, has caused the confusion between the French King and theFrench bishop, one of whom is certainly a patron of the city to thisday. The lilies of France are scattered everywhere at the feet of theUmbrian griffin. But the true patron of Perugia is S. Louis Bishop ofToulouse, and as far as we know the visit of King Louis of France wasonly recorded by the author of theFioretti.{201}

CHAPTER VIII

JUST under the bell tower of the Palazzo Pubblico a narrow street,called the Via dei Priori, well-paved, and preserving manycharacteristics of the mediæval city, runs steeply down through thePorta S. Susanna and into the open country by the station. Once when thenobles 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 thestreet in a crimson stream at night—hence the name of Via delPiscinello which is given to the street a little lower down. The housesare very old, very grim, and closely packed in the Via dei Priori. Thelumieri, where the heads of enemies were hung, stand out maliciouslyupon the walls of the Palazzo Pubblico to the right, and many of thepalaces have still their narrow doors for the dead orporte delmortuccio.[76]

From the Chiesa Nuova (built in 1218 but entirely remodelled and spoiltby bad decoration) a narrow{202} street leads off to the left and down pastsome charming red brick palaces into a narrower street where what isknown as Perugino’s house still stands.

THE OLD COLLEGIO DEI NOTARI, SAID TO BE THE STUDIO OFPERUGINO

Though there seems to be but very slight evidence about the real abodeof the painter, his studio has been fixed in the beautiful old cornerpalace with the red marble windows in the Via del Commercio off theCorso. But one place does as well as another to pin a legend to,{203}

TORRE DEGLI SCIRRI

and this little house of mean appearance tucked away in a dark andsomewhat dingy street, with only a marble slab to mark it, serves thepurpose well enough.{204}Indeed, if one believed Vasari, one could withease imagine Perugino choosing such a spot as this to hide his wife, hiscrimes (?) and all his money in, and see him hurrying thither in thedusk of a December evening from some big church or city where he hadbeen to paint an altar-piece for prince or pontiff. One can even picturethe long dark cloak he wore to cover up his money bag, his little cappressed low upon his rather cloudy forehead, and one can almost hear himchuckle as he eats his maccaroni and strokes the fair hair of the womanhe so loved, thinking with the joy of malice of all the other women whowould come to pray and weep before his saints and hisPietàs.

But this is nothing better than a dream. Blankly one looks at the slababove the door, at the wall from which even the frescoe of S.Christopher has vanished, and from the utter silence of the place onehurries away and further on down the Via dei Priori. The street ends,and one passes into the open country through the Porta S. Susanna. Justabove is theTorre degli Scirri—one of the only specimens remainingof all the wealth of towers in the past. A tree has grown upon its verytop as though to seal the peace which follows after strife. A littlefurther on is the small church of the Madonna della Luce. The front ofthis church is a very dainty bit of architecture and was designed byCesarino Roscetto, a Perugian goldsmith, who also made the silver shrinein the cathedral which holds the Virgin’s ring. It has inside abeautiful altar piece by some scholar of Perugino. The picture isexquisite in colour and in sentiment. Siepi gives a long history aboutit, which, although it does not altogether fit in with the facts ofdates, we cannot refrain from mentioning here. (Perhaps he was alludingto some older fresco which has disappeared.) He says that on the 12th ofSeptember 1513 some youths were playing at cards under the{205}

ETRUSCAN ARCH OF S. LUCA

wall of a butcher’s shop which in old days stood outside the church ofS. Francesco. One of them, a young barber, called Fallerio, lost heavilyat the game, whereat he swore a terrible oath, hearing which blasphemythe Madonna in her shrine by the wayside{206} closed her eyes, and kept themclosed for the space of four whole days. On the 16th she opened themagain. So great was the fame of this miracle, and the sensation itcaused, that processions and great multitudes of people came to worshipbefore her shrine, and on the 7th of April 1513 her picture was carriedto 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 ofLight to commemorate this wonderful occurrence.

From the church one road leads out into the country through the oldEtruscan gate of S. Luca and another to the right into the Piazza dellaGiustizia: that fair open green which holds one of the loveliest flowersof Renaissance art—the façade of the Oratory of S. Bernardino.

S. Bernardino.

The Oratory was built in 1450 by the magistrates of Perugia, who wereanxious to leave to their city some enduring mark of the man whoseinfluence in times of extreme moral depravity and perpetual party strifehad been so purely one of good to the citizens of Perugia. The life ofS. Bernardino of Siena is familiar to most people. He, like S. Francis,exercised an extraordinary power over the minds of men in the middleages by the mere example of pure living and sweetness of character, butperhaps his power lay a little more in preaching and in stirring men toaction than that of the saint of Assisi, whose influence was moreabsolutely that of peace.

S. Bernardino of Siena was born at Massa, near Siena, in 1380. Hismother died early, leaving the child to the care of an aunt. By thislady, Diana degli Albizeschi, he was educated with extreme care andtenderness, and he grew up beautiful, gracious, and{207} very pure of heart.At seventeen he joined a confraternity at Siena, and by the early age oftwenty-four he had already shaken an always weak constitution by hisgreat labours for the sick in the time of plague. He died at Aquila inthe Abruzzi, and was canonized in 1450 by Pope Nicholas V. S.Bernardino’s life was one perpetual strain towards the light in an agewhich was dark, and one of its greatest objects had been to reconcilethe mutual hatred of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. He was full ofchild-like faith and wise philanthropy; and tradition says that it washe who started the firstMonte di Pietà or pawnshop, and Perugiaclaims the privilege of having seen the first of these institutions.[77]

The figure of S. Bernardino is always unmistakable in art, and itbecomes familiar to us in Perugia, where he exercised an extraordinarypower, and where he would preach from his pulpit in the public square toan almost maddened crowd of penitents. The saint is always representedholding a square tablet with the initials of Christ set round with raysupon it, because he was accustomed to hold one of these whilstpreaching. His face is emaciated, but beautiful both in line and inexpression; it is a face which the spirit illumines with an unmistakableglory. Mrs Jameson, in her life of the saint, says that the finestsculptured portrait of him is that on the façade of his Oratory atPerugia; and certainly, if taken merely as a graceful bit of art, fewthings could do more honour to the man whose best tribute, however, willalways be his extraordinary hold on the hearts of men throughout thewhole of Italy.

In 1461 the people of Perugia called in a Florentine{208} sculptor, AgostinoDucci or Gucci, to ornament the façade of their new oratory. Thissculptor is described by both Vasari and Mariotti as AgostinodellaRobbia, and connected, either as a son or a brother, with thatwell-known family. The connection is, however, not proved, neither doeshis work seem to corroborate it in any way.[78]

The façade of S. Bernardino is a marvellous and perhaps a unique thingin art. The work on it is light and airy like the winds of spring. Thefigures of the angels, the garlands, and the saint himself, are full ofthat elegant and subtle charm which now and then surprises one insculpture. Ducci made wonderful use of the pale pink marble of thecountry, mixing it with terra-cotta figures, bits of blue sky, andmarble, creamy white, for all his garlands. Perhaps the loveliestfigures, where all are lovely, are those of the six virtues, Mercy,[79]Holiness, and Purity, Religion, Mortification, and Patience, on eitherside of the entrance doors. But the different angels playing ondifferent instruments, and the flying angels round the figure of thesaint, are each delightful in their separate ways. Even the inevitablegriffin seems softened by the hand of the Florentine sculptor, and hehas admirably caught the purely spiritual nature of the saint, both inthe large central portrait, and in the smaller plaques where some of hismiracles are represented. Siepi gives a full description of thedifferent scenes:

MERCY. DETAIL ON FAÇADE OF THE ORATORY OF S. BERNARDINO

It is not very clear why this particular spot was chosen from all otherson which to build the Oratory of S. Bernardino, but it was probablybecause it stood so close to the convent of S. Francesco al Prato, wherethe Saint, who himself was a Franciscan, would naturally stay when hepaid his visits to Perugia. We hear that he was deeply attached to acertain bell which hung in the campanile of the convent, and which borethe 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, thatViola fell. S. Bernardino was preaching at the minute up in the squareof the cathedral, but by a miracle he heard her fall and stopped hissermon for an instant, saying to the people: “My children, Viola hasfallen, but she is not harmed!” and he was right. Viola was set up inher place again and rings with a clear strong voice, dear to the heartof the Perugians, even in the present century.[80]

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

Long even before the birth of S. Bernardino a much older order orConfraternità held its meetings in the small church at the back of thepresent oratory. This was theConfraternità di S. Andrea dellaGiustizia,{211} and it was one of the earliest of those remarkablesocieties—one may almost describe them as religious guilds—which roseup out of that great devotional movement at the end of the middle ageswhich resulted in the extraordinary processions and displays of the“Flagellants.” “The movement,” says Doctor Creighton, “passed away; butit has left its dress as a distinctive badge to the confraternities ofmercy which are familiar to the traveller in the streets of many citiesof Italy.”

Morals, as we have seen, were very low in the thirteenth and thefourteenth century; blood flowed freely in party feuds and towns weredevastated and corrupted by the strife of church and people. All thesethings, and the great pestilence which ravaged the country and thecities, were taken, and probably with perfect justice, to be the signsof an offended deity. “It was then,” says Bonazzi, “when men had grownfamiliar with death, that those strange songs arose which the peoplesang in the moonlight, wrapped in white sheets, whilst they danced thedances of the dead about the streets, clanging the bones together inweird accompaniment to their songs.” Doctor Creighton[81] dates thismovement to the end of the fourteenth century. He says also that itoriginated in Provence. Perugia, however, lays strong claim to havingherself sown the first seed, and this as early as the middle of thethirteenth 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 diBologna.” Raniero tells us that he was accustomed, as a young monk atPerugia, to lead a life of excessive privation and abnegation, and oneday, when scourging himself as{212} was his custom, he was joined in avision by certain saints who accompanied him to the church of S.Fiorenzo, and there they all beat themselves together in front of thehigh altar. This vision occurred day after day to Raniero, but at lastone of the saints spoke to him and told him that it was the will ofheaven that men should purge their sins in this same fashion. Ranierocarried his tale to the Bishop, who expounded it in a sermon to theinhabitants of Perugia, and this, according to some historians, was theorigin of all the fantastic demonstrations of public repentance whichsoon spread over Italy, and from which, as years went by, there arosethe calmer and more practical institutions of Confraternities in theseveral cities. One of the earliest of these at Perugia itself was thecompany of S. Andrea, and it is interesting to read its laws andstatutes. Through its own annals we find that it was started in 1374,during the reign of Pope Gregory XI. “for the furtherance of the worshipof God and of His Mother the blessed Virgin Mary, and of the gloriousmartyrs and protectors of the city—Messers Sancto Ercolano, SanctoLaurenzo, Sancto Costanzo, and Sancto Andrea the apostle; and for thehonour and estate of the Holy Mother Church and her protectors; andfurther for the maintenance, the governing, the magnificence, and thepeaceful state of the people and the city of Peroscia.”

Infinite and careful laws of civil and religious duties follow—laws forthe maintenance of peace and the Christian comfort of souls: the day ofthe saint was to be most strictly kept, fasting if possible, or by himwho could not fast, a feast was to be given to a beggar or twenty-fivepaternosters told, “and all must be at mass that day or pay a fine oftwenty soldi.” But the great work of the society of S. Andrea was thehelp and protection of criminals. Its members got permission{213} from thecity government to meet those who were going to execution, and toaccompany them to the scene of death, comforting them by the way, andsustaining them with prayers and even sweetmeats to the very last. Inearly times criminals were beheaded far from the city walls; and inPerugia the place of doom was down in the open country on the site of anold Etruscan tomb, the Torre di S. Manno. “Wherefore,” writes onehistorian, “in the fatal passing of these miserable people, the piousdisciplinati 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 usuallysaid, because justice was carried out on the spot itself.

TheConfraternità of S. Andrea continued to increase both in power andin size. Other societies of the same charitable sort sprang up allthrough the city, and after the death of S. Bernardino of Siena a newone was started in his name at Porta Eburnea. But in one of the greatfights between the nobles, their buildings were so knocked about andmutilated that the members of the society had to seek out differentquarters, and they then joined themselves to the older confraternity ofS. Andrea down at S. Francesco and thenceforth “worked together,extending their labour of charity to the inspection of prisons, and tothe Christian comfort of prisoners.”[82]

S. Francesco al Prato.

To the right of the Oratory of S. Bernardino is the immense, but quiteruined, church and convent{214} of S. Francesco al Prato. S. Francesco, moreeven than S. Domenico and so many of the churches of Perugia, is onlythe skeleton of a once beautiful body from which the silken robes, thejewels, even the flesh, have been torn rudely off by men and time. Thechurch was built in 1230, in the form of a Latin cross with a singlenave. But from the moment it was built, owing to the crumbling nature ofthe soil, and the heavy and overweighted style of its architecture, itwas threatened with immediate destruction, so that in 1737 it fell inalmost completely.

Throughout the history of Perugia we read of great events which centredin S. Francesco, of great men who were buried there, artists whopainted, and popes who blessed and prayed. Of all these formersplendours, nothing remains beyond a carcase of stone walls. Thepictures—the Raphael, the Pinturicchios and the Peruginos, with theexception of Bonfigli’s banner in the chapel of the Gonfalone,[83] andone interesting early fresco down in the crypt,—have been removed tothe Pinacoteca and to other towns. Fortebraccio’s bones have gone to themuseum, Fra Egidio’s tomb is in the church near the museum, and the roofhas 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 dellaGiustizia. One of the pleasantest runs through a bit of cultivated landoutside the town walls: the Via di San Francesco, and, joining the Viadella Conca, passes up under the Arco d’Augusta and{215} back by the ViaVecchia. But another way, which few could find who did not know of it,winds back into the heart of the old town, actually crossing theEtruscan walls in one place, and comes out opposite the Canonica, havingpassed the little old church of S. Martino.

S. Martino is so old, and so much overshadowed by the big palaceopposite, it is sunk so low upon the street, that passing by ithurriedly one scarcely recognises it as a church at all.[84] The highaltar has a very beautiful altar-piece by Giannicola Manni—one of theloveliest bits of Umbrian colouring that we remember in Perugia, andthere is a rather faulty fresco by some scholar of Perugino on the westwall, redeemed by that subtle and sweet charm peculiar to the work ofthe master. The little church is guarded by a true friend, who not onlyhonours its pictures, but has even copied them with faithful care, andthe whole place is filled with something of the quiet and religiousfervour which lingers only after centuries of prayer and incense, andwhich is lacking in so many of the more frequented churches of thetown.{216}

CHAPTER IX

Pietro Perugino and the Cambio[85]

THE name of Perugia is naturally connected with that of Pietro Vannuccidetto il Perugino, or, as he preferred to sign himself,Petrus deCastro Plebis, who stamped the peculiar personality of his paintingupon a whole school of Renaissance Italian art. Vannucci was by no meansthe first artist of the Umbrian school, but he was the man who broughtit into general notice, and it was in the city of Perugia that he livedand worked, and had his school of painting.

The best of Perugino’s work, however, with the exception of his frescoesin the Cambio, is not to be found in his native town. The indefatigableNapoleon had a profound admiration for Pietro’s altar-pieces. He soughtthem out, he insisted on getting every inch of them, down to theirsmallest predellas, and the splendid pictures of S. Pietro, S. Lorenzo,and S. Agostino went over the Alps to swell his galleries in theTuileries. The frescoes of the Cambio could not go, and they at leastremain exactly as the master painted them. To understand the man Pietroas well as the artist, we must study in the Cambio, for there hisportrait hangs face to face with a whole set of his frescoes, and thecontrast of the painter’s face and the faces he invariably gave to hissaints is almost as strange as that between the Umbrian saints and{217} thehistory of the times in which they lived and worked.

To understand the painters of Perugia one must understand the period inwhich they were produced. One wonders whether Vasari reckoned at allwith this when he wrote his life of Perugino. The Florentine was notparticularly just to Umbrian painters in general, and of Pietro Vannuccihe paints a very unsympathetic portrait. He accuses him of two greatfaults: avarice and irreligion, and these have become so inevitablyconnected 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 paintedexclusively 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 theearly life of Perugino is concerned. We hear, for instance, that hepainted several banners for his native city in the time of plague andwar, that he asked no money for them, and when the time of need was pasthe took them back and kept them in his studio. Also, merely as anamusing anecdote, Vasari himself tells us that Pietro could open hispurse for the woman he loved, and dress her in the fairest and thecostliest clothes, setting the pins and folds himself upon her headgear.In the latter part of his life, which was not without some shadow, hedid paint for money, allowing soulless pictures to pass from his studioto the altars of believing monks and ladies; but his best work belongsto his earliest period, and there is no reason to believe that it wasuninspired save by the inspiration of gold.

Concerning the second accusation—lack of faith—we have dealt with itat the end of Pietro’s life, and we can only add here that the man musthave been of super-human gentleness who could live through the scenes{218}that Vannucci lived through, and maintain the faith of childhood.

The portrait in the Cambio is a stumbling block. The expression is heavyand unspiritual. This fact jars, and we resent it. (See frontispiece.)

But whatever Pietro’s appearance, whatever his personal character mayhave been, he did two things: he left behind him an enduring mark in thehistory of art, and he gave the soul to that considerable school ofpainting from which young Raphael went forth into the wondering world,together with a host of other painters whose tendency was entirely inthe direction of the spiritual and purifying elements in human life.

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

Away to the southwest of Perugia, above the lakes of Trasimene andChiusi, with a wide view southwards towards Rome, and northwards toCortona, is the little Umbrian hill-town of Città della Pieve. It is sodeeply buried in its oak woods that one can barely see it from the hillsand plains around it. The town is very old and very sleepy, built of redbricks with hardly any stones, and scarcely any buildings of importance.The streets seem fallen dead asleep. “Why do you come here? The place isdead. Nothing ever happens in our city,” said the melancholy daughter ofthe landlord, and the girl, by her unconscious words, explained the veryreason of our visit.

Nothing ever happens in Città della Pieve. The town has fallen on sleepin its delightful landscape—on sleep as silent and profound as that ofall the fossil shells in the banks along the roads which lead to it. Butthe place is strangely and marvellously beautiful; it holds the veryessence of that intense religious charm peculiar to the landscapes ofUmbria, and to the painters who have painted them; without exaggeration,we may say that the city looks to-day{219} just exactly as it looked overfour hundred years ago, at the time when, to the lovers of art, itshistory began and ended.[86]

Pietro Vannucci de Castro Plebisdetto il Perugino, was born at Cittàdella Pieve in the year 1446. His parents were very poor, but they wereof a good family and position. There were many children, and life was astruggle for bread in the small boy’s home. When he was about eight, hisfather, Christoforo Vannucci, decided to educate him as a painter, andso 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 shopdrudge to a painter who was not particularly distinguished in hiscalling, but who held the art in great veneration, and highly honouredthe men who excelled therein.” The painter was probably Bonfigli, one ofthe most delightful artists of the Umbrian school, but Pietro must havegathered instruction from other sources too, from Fiorenzo di Lorenzoand Piero della Francesca, who we know were painting at that time. Maybethe boy met them at their work in churches, maybe he even travelled withthem as a sort of journeyman. But it was probably Bonfigli who earlyinspired him with an ambitious desire to spread his wings in higherspheres of art than the little Umbrian town afforded him, and who gavehim the worldly-wise advice retailed to us at some length by Vasari:Perugino must go to Florence,

Pietro listened to these naïve counsels; he drank them in and hefollowed them out to the letter. When quite a young man he startedacross the hills to Florence. He probably travelled as a journeyman,begging or earning his bread along the way. He reached Florence, enteredthe studio of Andrea Verrocchio, buried himself in a passionate study ofhis art, and, barely ten years after the date when, as an almost unknownartist, he had entered Florence with the secret of his genius in hissoul, he left it again to go to Rome and paint a portion of the SistineChapel at the command of the reigning pope. Pietro studied in goodschools and in excellently good society. In Florence he probably metwith men like Botticelli, Credi, and certainly Leonardo da Vinci.Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, is said to have written the followinglines about the two young painters:

Divine in truth were the two young men, for they were to be the fathersof 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 theloss, but it is useless now to dwell on it and to describe the vanishedfrescoes of the Gesuati convent. Pietro was{221}

PERUGINO: MADONNA AND PATRON SAINTS OF PERUGIA PAINTEDFOR THE MAGISTRATES’ CHAPEL AT PERUGIA, NOW IN THE VATICAN AT ROME

called to Rome about the year 1483. There he painted several pictures onthe walls of the Sistine chapel. Only two of them remain, and thefigures of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment have long obliterated thesweet-faced Umbrian saints and landscapes{222} which used to cover the eastwall.[87] Having spent a little time in Rome, Perugino returned to hisnative land, and the best of his paintings belong to that period—namelyto the years 1490-1502.

This is no place in which to describe the works of Perugino’s prime. Theworld knows them and the capitals of Europe possess them, but from thecity of Perugia, for which some of the very best were painted, they havebeen taken away by “quel stupendo ladro—Napoleone Bonaparte.”[88]Perugino’s fame spread like wildfire over the cities of Italy. “Thismaestro Pietro,” says a very old chronicler, “was distinguished(singolare) in his art throughout the universal world.” So intense washis fame and popularity, and his work in such demand, that it wasimpossible for him, for one single man, to supply all the work which mendemanded of him. We should not therefore feel surprised at the number ofsecond-rate pictures, planned by the master and carried out by hisscholars, which have come down to us bearing his name.

From the period of his prime, Perugino perhaps went wrong—that is tosay, he realised his own charms, specified, docketted them, stereotypedthe smile of his saints and set his scholars working, so to speak, onthe reproduction of the labels he himself had painted. His personalityextended itself into a school, where, at times, it became merecaricature. Other stars had risen on the horizon, great and shining;some of them straight from the master’s own{223} workshop, some from othercities. There is a pitiful story told of the jealousy of the old Umbrianmaster for the growing fame of Michelangelo. It ended in a lawsuit fromwhich Pietro withdrew his claims; but the tale may be unfounded, and weknow that Vannucci praised the David when called to pass a judgment onit, we also know that he named one of his own children after the Tuscansculptor.

But if we can recognise the later weakness of Perugino, the men wholived in his days and who openly declared him to be the master ofmasters never apparently recognised it. They seem to have worshipped hisdecadence as they had worshipped his dawn. They paid large sums for thefeeble saints which rose like ghosts beneath his brush. They desired nobetter man to save them in the time of plague and bloodshed by thecreation of a S. Sebastian which they might carry in procession, or aMadonna that they might kneel to. And truly to the end an ineffablesweetness, a religious amiability, is the undercurrent of the master’spainting.

Pietro Vannucci died of the plague in the year 1523 at Fontignano, asmall village near Perugia, where he had been called to paint a S.Sebastian in the time of pestilence. He was hurried into some desolategrave under an oak by the wayside, and he died, as they say, withoutfaith of immortality, denying to the last that Saviour, whose face andfigure, whose Mother and surroundings, he, of all men on earth, hadstriven through life to idealize.

So writes Vasari, but on this accusation we would pause. There may havebeen some sickness in Pietro’s soul, we feel and see it in his work andportrait; but he had lived in terrible times and seen much evil andstriven to paint much good. The fact that he was buried in unconsecratedground proves{224} literally nothing, for an old chronicler, describing thewretchedness of the times, combined with the terrors of the plague,tells us, “that such was the state of affairs, that the dead were paidas little attention to in those times as in our day we might give togoats or sheep; and that especially in the country where no one attendedto anything, all died, almost without exception, not like men but almostlike beasts; and as the consecrated ground did not suffice for burialthey put the bodies into ditches, covering them up with a very littleearth.” Furthermore, “it was prohibited to visit the sick, and to attendthe funerals of the dead.” This being the case, how was it possible tofind the corpse of one old man in order to lay it in consecrated ground?Pietro’s sons tried hard to find it. We read of them: of Giambatisto,Francesco and Michaelangelo, searching diligently but in vain for theirfather’s bones, that they might lay them in the Church of S.Agostino.[89]

Mariotti the chronicler of Perugino, whose loving and infinitely carefulsearch has soothed, if it could not obliterate Vasari’s spiteful words,ends his notes on Perugino with the following quotation from a Latinpoet:—

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

It was just at the end of the period of Pietro’s prime, namely, aboutthe years 1499 to 1507, that he was commissioned to paint the walls ofthe Cambio. It is interesting to remember that at this time Perugino wasin correspondence with the monks of Orvieto, who wished him to paint thefrescoes in their Duomo. He had long dallied with his answer, he hadcertain other{225} large works on hand, but when his fellow-citizens sent intheir request that he should undertake this very considerable work forthem he did not hesitate; he threw over his previous engagement, which,as we know, was magnificently taken up by Signorelli, and he at once setto work upon the walls of the Cambio.

Perugino was perhaps out of his element in this new undertaking. He hadno choice of subjects, for they had been selected for him by the membersof the Guild, who throughout show a most naïve interest and concern inthe decoration of their rooms. These men were determined to secure thevery best work they could; their seats, their panels, their doors wereof the finest wood, worked by the most skilful carpenters and artists ofthe day. They were not wise in literature themselves, so they applied tothe best scholar of their city, Francesco Matarazzo, for instructions,and it was he who most probably arranged the curious mixture of classicsubjects and inscriptions which Perugino, with a certain child-like andingenuous persistence, painted as he had painted all the familiarsubjects of the Bible. For the ceiling of the audience chamber, whichdeals entirely with mythological figures, he may have consulted certainold illustrated missals in the Perugian archives; one of these, a Cicero(unhappily stolen from the library some years ago), very probablysuggested some of the figures and beasts of the Zodiac which decoratethe ceiling.

The impression made upon one by the painting in the Cambio is very calmand pleasing. The whole is a harmony—a harmony of subjects sacred andprofane such as the classic-loving minds of scholars in the days of theRenaissance delighted to create, and give to one of their purelyreligious artists to carry out successfully.{226} The left wall is coveredby two frescoes—two lines of figures—eight Romans and four Greeks.Behind these figures stretches the fair, calm, Umbrian landscape, dearto the heart of the Umbrian painter. In the sky above them are fourfemale figures, Prudence and Justice, Fortitude and Temperance, andbelow them small angels hold the long inscription which is written overevery group. Very soft and tender is Perugino’s conception of RomanEmperors and Greek philosophers. They have the hands of women, theirfaces are sweet like the faces of saints. They look a little sad, andvery gentle as they bend towards each other—not one of these men couldhave proved a ruler of nations. What did Perugino mean when he paintedin the second group this visionary host of warriors? Surely he dreamedof some fair Umbrian girls that he had met in May along the lanes, butnot of heroes. These youths, with their wonderful headgear and theirlong, limp bodies would have fallen as field flowers fall before thescythe or even a summer shower. That they are fair no one denies, and inthe face of Cincinnatus there is a mysterious sweetness which disarmsour criticism; but they are merely spiritual or imaginative portraits ofthe men whose names are carefully inscribed beneath them. The oppositewall is covered by a group of Prophets and of Sibyls—a combinationwhich was not uncommon in later Christian art. To the left Isaiah,Moses, Daniel, David and Jeremiah, and opposite them the Persian,Cumaean, Lybian, Tyburtine and Delphic sibyls. Perugino crowned thismost singular mixture of pagan and of Hebrew figures with a portrait ofGod the Father in glory. Many of the faces in this group are verybeautiful, notably that of Daniel, which is said to be a portrait ofyoung Raphael, and is a truly exquisite thing. Jeremiah is representedas a young and very{227} melancholy man, and his face is said to be aportrait of Pinturicchio, but if this fact is true the likeness is muchidealized.

In the two frescoes at the end of the room, namely, the Nativity and theTransfiguration, Pietro was in his old and dearer element. The former ofthese is a beautiful bit of his best religious work, but it has beenterribly damaged by smoke, as the lamp of the Cambio used to hangbeneath it.

There is some dispute as to whether Pietro worked alone at thesefrescoes. It appears almost certain that he did do so, with theexception, perhaps, of one of his scholars, l’Ingegno, who is said tohave painted the face of Christ in the Transfiguration.[90] The ceiling,where the planets are painted in medallions, is perhaps the work of hisschool, although the drawings were entirely supplied by Perugino.Pinturicchio is said to have helped in the painting, and Raphaeldoubtless watched it with delight, and from it drew suggestions which hecarried later to the Vatican. Delightful animals, dragons, and differentbirds pull the chariots of the various planets. The arabesques areinfinitely varied,{228} and form a study in themselves. Small boys andcherubs ride astride of dragons or of goats, and strange fantasticanimals turn and twist themselves through flower stalks and bowls offruits and flowers. Squirrels, peacocks, snakes, and many other knownand unknown creatures, cover the arches like enamelled gems.

It is curious to pass from Perugino’s frescoes in the audience chamberof the Cambio to those of his pupil Giannicola Manni in the chapel ofthe same guild. Manni’s work is very rare, and indeed it is barely seenoutside Perugia.[91] He was a scholar of Perugino, and in his earlieryears he followed in the steps of his master, but in later life he wentto Florence and there acquired a love for the style of Andrea del Sarto.The influence of the two distinct schools of painting is strongly markedin the chapel of the Cambio, the ceiling of which was painted early inManni’s life, the walls after his return from Florence. Manni is agenial and attractive painter. He paints exactly as he pleases,regardless of religion or of history, and in his series of scenes fromthe life of S. John he gives us a set of luxurious human beings leadinga very human cinque-cento life. The colour is bright, the figuresportraits of the time. The ladies are very decolletées, fat, and dressedin comfortable gowns of the most beautiful stuffs and the simplest cut.One lady in the Nativity is particularly attractive. She wears agorgeous gown of red; her fluffy yellow hair is neatly gathered in anet, embossed with bobs of the purest gold. S. Elizabeth, too, may beenvied the splendour of her bed, and the looping of its heavy damaskcurtains. There is a sense of luxury, a sort of wanton abundance whichis almost Venetian, throughout Manni’s{229} frescoes of the life of S. John.In the banquet scene, a dog and cat are preparing for a playful battlein the foreground of the picture. Had the Umbrian painter seen somecanvasses of Veronese? Certainly he had wandered far afield from theearly teaching which shows so clear upon the ceiling. He died in 1544,and most of his work, which we know to have consisted chiefly ofbanners, is lost to us, lost too, the painting of the city clock whichMariotti records for us with such minute precision.[92]

On leaving the Cambio it would be well to look in at the Magistrate’saudience chamber which opens on to the Corso two doors further on. It isa magnificent piece of Renaissance woodwork where every inch isexquisitely carved and finished. Perugia is rich in rare and lovelycarvings, but nowhere more than in this single hall.{230}

CHAPTER X

The Pinacoteca[93]

THERE is perhaps no gallery in Europe as single-minded—as devoted toone set of men—as the gallery at Perugia. In passing through itsseparate rooms one feels none of that painful sense of clash and strainproduced by a mixture of different schools, which haunts one in so manycollections of statues or of pictures; and the most tired andindifferent traveller will feel something soothed and softened in hisbrain before he turns his back upon the quiet sacred pictures of theUmbrian masters.

In no land perhaps, and in no school of art, was the feeling of thepainters more purely and more absolutelyreligious than in the land ofUmbria. The saints were painted for places where saints were worshipped;the Christs have the love of the Father in their faces; the Marys areMothers of pity and of grace; the bishops have renounced the ways ofearth—their faces are calm and grey beneath their mitres. And theUmbrian{231} angels are crowned with roses, but they are the roses ofParadise, and not the flowers of earth and of her banquets. Think of thegalleries of Venice, of Bonifazio’s Dives, and the glorious women ofTitian; think of the Roman collections, of Bologna and Guercino; nay,even think of the later art of Florence, and then come back to thesecalm Umbrian masters. The gap is wide; the one is full of the passionand splendour of earth, the other of the sentiment of heaven.

In M. Rio’s chapters on the Umbrian school (l’Art Chrétien, vol. ii.),he dwells at length on the purely spiritual tendency of the Umbrianschool, and to enforce this he points out two of its most remarkablecharacteristics; firstly he remarks that the Umbrian painters rarelypainted portraits, and secondly, he gives an account of one of theirchief products, namely, the painting of thegonfalone or banner.

We have seen in the history how the inhabitants of Perugia, driven todesperation by their own wickedness, would take fits of the mostpassionate religious revolt, and, casting aside the vanities of theflesh, half kill themselves with cords and stripes and lamentations.This excess of repentance took different forms. Sometimes, as we know,it resulted in an appeal to the saints through wild, mad litanies; atothers in an appeal to Christ’s mercy through art; and it was at suchtimes that the Umbrian school, beginning with Bonfigli and ending inworks like Raphael’s Sistine Madonna and Baroccio’s much later designs,painted thegonfalone, a style of picture which is very typical ofUmbria, and which should be looked at with a knowledge of the eventsfrom which it first originated. These banners were carried about thecity, the priests walking in front, the populace behind, a wail andshriek of lamentation falling on the air as the procession passed.{232}Sometimes, as in the banner of Bonfigli at S. Fiorenzo, a poem ofsupplication to God would be painted, upheld by angels, on the banneritself, with passionate words of prayer upon it. It is difficult torender into English the palpitating style of the original verses, but wequote some passages to illustrate the sentiment which inspired thepainting of thegonfalone of S. Fiorenzo (the date of the banner isabout 1476):

Thegonfalone on which this menacing appeal of the angel of God ispainted is by Bonfigli, and was made at the time of a terriblepestilence which raged through Perugia at the end of the fifteenthcentury.

In Umbria therefore, more than in most countries, the history of her artshould be studied side by side with the history of the times in which itwas produced, for the one was, as it were, the spiritual escape orreaction from the other. The art of Umbria was perhaps only another formof that spirit which produced{233} the teaching of S. Francis. The firstpictures of Perugia are full of man’s best prayers, the earliest of thembear his stripes, in very few can we detect his wantonness or humour;and when we say that the later ones are imbued with man’s weakness, orat least his sentimentality, we make a most apparent platitude. It issufficient in this place to note that whatever the final faults of theschool, it originated in a purpose that was pure—the purpose of men whostrove to represent the very opposite of all that fury, blood, andpassion peculiar to the time and place in which they lived and painted.

To most people, therefore, who once have grasped these facts, there willbe something sad, nay, even offensive, in the Pinacoteca at Perugia.Why, and for whom, were these purely religious paintings torn from theirniches in the quiet churches, and hung up, side by side, in a glare oflight on the walls of a gallery? How pale, and how sad they look, afterall, the saints and the Marys, the angels and the holy Child, here onthe bare grey walls. The thing has been said a hundred times before, buta friend at Perugia said it to us in a way we have never forgotten. Hewas a priest, and he loved his church. We were discussing together thepresent system of local picture galleries. His eyes grew dark. “Yes,” hesaid, “it is as though they would tear a child from the breasts of itsmother. The mother withers and dies, and the child dies too, without hercare in the wilderness where they laid it.”

It is the student of art who profits by the present arrangement, for thepictures at Perugia are not difficult to find. With the exception of theDuomo and S. Pietro, most of the churches have been ransacked, and theircanvasses and panels{234} neatly stored in perfect order of dates and nameson the walls of the Pinacoteca, and it is an easy matter, even in aquiet morning’s stroll, to follow here the rise and fall of Umbrian art.In the limited space before us it will not be possible to give anythingbut a skeleton sketch of the school of Perugino. Larger works containabundant store of facts about this particular centre of Italian art; butif one only shuts one’s eyes and dreams of it, the three great namesstart up before one: Pietro Vannucci, Raphael, and Pinturicchio. Closeupon these follow other names; some, and these perhaps the fairest andmost charming, rise like the dawn behind them: Ottaviano Nelli,Bonfigli, and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. The pupils follow after Manni, LoSpagna, Eusebio di S. Giorgio, l’Ingegno, Sinibaldo Ibi, Tiberiod’Assisi and a host of others, who die at last, feeble, but not utterlydegraded, in the works of the two Alfanis.

An easy-going historian of Perugia summed up the earliest stages of herart in the following sentence: “I have not been able to discover thatPerugia had any painters before the time of Bonfigli, but even if shehad them, they will not have been worthy of mention.” The assertion wassweeping, and later writers have taken pains to contradict it, but forthose who have only time for a superficial and general study of Perugianpictures it yet holds a good deal of truth. No great original work (withthe exception of the missal workers, in which style of art Perugia isvery rich) is left to us from the hand of a Perugian artist before thetime of Bonfigli, and the early history of her art may be said to havebeen a great deal that of outside influences, for from very early timesthe best and greatest masters appear, like foreign tribes before them,to have{235} climbed the hill and left some subtle marks upon her churchesand her palaces.[94]

As the School of Siena died, that of Umbria awoke to life. Close uponthe heels of Taddeo Bartoli, those men followed who were born to precedethe School of Perugino. Before them there were around Perugia onlyphantoms: stiff saints on panels and on parchment, without dates, ghostsof unattained, though dimly felt, ideals—a scattered flock of“primitives,” left here and there on chapel walls or psalters. Thengradually, all through Umbria and her border lands, in a steady circleof glory, like the stars on a summer night, the lights arose and burned.At Gubbio, Camerino, Foligno, Gualdo, Fabriano, and Urbino we tracetheir steady progress through the work of men like Nelli, Piero dellaFrancesca, Gentile da Fabriano, Niccolò Alunno, and many others. And asthese stars arose great comets travelled through them—Giotto, FraAngelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, Filippo Lippi, and others, till the whole skywas full. Then from the centre, straight from the hill of Città dellaPieve—there rose Pietro Perugino, and to his school came one with thehalo of pure art upon his forehead,—Raphael Sanzio of Urbino.

The following notes on the Pinacoteca and its pictures may be of use toanyone who requires a few more details than a guide-book can supply.They pretend to be nothing like a serious criticism, for the history ofart is long and the books about it full; in most of them the art ofUmbria is freely treated. We have{236} gleaned our notes about the paintersof Perugia from such sources as Vasari (who, however, is oftenprejudiced), Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and several local works. Anypersonal gossip has been drawn from the ever delightful works ofMariotti, whose words, if they be now and then a little antiquated, areas trustworthy as those of a faithful student’s only can be. We havedealt chiefly with the work of the Umbrian painters, and indeed, withthe exception of Fra Angelico’s panels and those of some of the Sienesemasters, there is little else to study in this small and charminggallery.

The Umbrian School followed close upon that of Siena, and the Gallery ofPerugia has some fine bits of Sienese work, notably some panels byTaddeo Bartoli (1363-1422) in Sala IV. This room has some other goodpanels of early masters—of masters who probably influenced thePerugians, but whose names are lost to us.[95]

Room I.

Sala dei Cimelii.

The first room in the gallery is devoted to the very earliest art ofSiena and Umbria, and is one of those rather painful collections ofpictures which we find in every local Italian gallery—a room of theprimitive painters—which are, as the narrow path of art, beset withmany thorns, where only those who passionately love the goal need try topush the briars back and tread the damp and pebbles. But we neverforget, though we may even dislike, the pitiful pale figures of thecrucified{237} Christ, and the staring wooden saints in triptychs, for inthem is shown the strain of technical ignorance, but of ignorance whichstrives with passionate pain to get beyond itself and soar towards theexpression of some deep emotion. This strain and impotent desire isamply shown in the monstrous figure of our Saviour by Magaritoned’Arezzo (see No. 26), which used to hang inside the chapel of S.Bernardino. Such as it is that figure had the seed of art in it, and ofan art which, perhaps, had a greater power of appeal to the souls of menand women in pain than all the finished figures of the later painters.No. 28 is an interesting picture, inasmuch as the Bishop whom itrepresents holds tight to his breast a picture of the old town ofPerugia. No. 16 is one of the earliest paintings known in Perugia. It isterribly damaged, and it is difficult to trace the story of the Saint inthe battered little panels. These same panels were the first coffin ofBeato Egidio (see p.198). Sometime after his death a splendid tomb wasmade for the Saint, which can still be seen in the church of theUniversity, and when the humbler coffin was pulled to pieces, someunknown local painter took the strange fancy to paint on it the historyof the man whose bones it had first covered, together with an accurateportrait of his new and lovelier tomb. There are many other pictures inthis room, among them (No. 11) an exquisite fragment of some oldpredella with two small angels on it; and one or two remains of earlySienese work.

Bonfigli.

The room which follows that devoted to the early schools, namely, theCappella del Bonfigli, is to a student of history one of the mostinteresting points in the whole gallery, for here, through the frescoesof a most childlike and delightful painter, we live again the life ofold{238} Perugia; and here too we stand, face to face, with the authenticwork of a man whose celebrity formerly centred round the fact that hewas the first master of Perugino, but who, as the years go by, will,doubtless, ever more and more stand on his own feet, and shine becauseof some strange, subtle and ever-living charm, that of the individual,which clings to all his work.

The Pinacoteca has many of Bonfigli’s works, and no one who once hasrealised the fashion in which this early Umbrian master crowned hiswomen and his angels will ever be able to forget it. How thin andexquisite the veils upon the pale, calm heads of his Madonnas; how fairand neat the wreaths of roses on the yellow hair of his young angels!Bonfigli was, indeed, a pleasant painter, and it is strange to thinkthat his home relations were of a tempestuous order: “Certainly he had awife,” says Mariotti, “and he had her of such a sort that she caused himnothing but anxiety; moreover, he was in constant strife with her.” ButBonfigli was not always calm in his painting. He could be humorous, hecould have a touch of Carpaccio in him, as will be seen in his frescoesfor the Magistrates’ Chapel; but he could also be passionate anddramatic. To understand him fully one must study him in hisgonfaloni,or banners. Perugia has five of these—one of S. Bernardino, now in thePinacoteca, another in the sacristy of S. Francesco al Prato; another inS. Fiorenzo (see p.232); the fourth in S. Maria Nuova; and the fifth inS. Lorenzo.[96] All have suffered from exposure and from restoration,{239}but they are unique and individual forms of art. The Christ in them isinexorable and revengeful, Death strives with man, saints and theMadonna try to interfere, and sad and supplicating groups of citizenskneel by their city walls and pray for grace.

Nothing is definitely known about the early life of Bonfigli. Thereseems to be no record of his birth. He was probably born about 1420, anddied about 1496. The first authentic mention of his work is in 1454,when he undertook a commission from the priors and their chaplain topaint the walls of the Magistrates’ Chapel in the Palazzo Pubblico. ThatBonfigli was well known and very highly appreciated in his native citybefore that date is evident. Mariotti tells us that he was called in bythe citizens as one of the judges to pronounce judgment on AgostinoDuccio’s façade at S. Bernardino. It is probable that he even had aschool of painting—that school to which Vasari somewhat slightinglyalludes in his life of Perugino.

Sala II.

Cappella di Bonfigli

(formerly the chapel of the Magistrates’ Guild).

Mariotti gives a long and humorous account of the contract betweenBonfigli and the magistrates about the painting of their chapel.Undertaken in 1454 the work was still unfinished at the time of thepainter’s death in 1496, and Mariotti is unable to discover anysufficient reason for such undignified delay. “I do{240} not easily thinkill of anyone,” he writes, “and least of all of painters, but certainlyin those years we have no record even of any influenza raging in thecity of Perugia.” When the chapel was half painted, Fra Filippo Lippiwas called in to judge about its excellence. He found the pictures good,and voted a sum of four hundred florins in payment to Bonfigli, who oncemore, and with infinite slowness, went to work upon them. Only theskeleton of this work remains. At the end of the last century, Mariottithus bewails it: “But the pictures of Bonfigli—oh, my God—how havethey been ravaged by the little care bestowed upon them, how devastatedby the course of time.” Half ruined by a form of restoration whichperhaps is worse than none, ill-lighted, and without their formercolour, the frescoes yet remain a delightful and engaging study. Theyrepresent the lives of the two bishops, St Louis of Toulouse, and S.Ercolano, patron saints of Perugia. To the right as you enter, and in adark corner by the window is the Consecration of S. Louis; next to itthe miracle of the fish performed by that Saint. This picture isadmirably preserved. The landscape is one of those half real and halffantastic follies of a wise man which always charm one. Bonfigli knewthat he must paint a town by the seashore; he painted the sea, but heput his own fair Umbrian city straight down upon its shores. Therestands the church of S. Domenico with its celebrated windows, and upbehind it, tier on tier, there rise the towers and the brown roofs ofthe city that we read about, the Perugia of the middle ages, against adark blue sky. The miracle is a naïve one. A merchant lost his bag ofgold during a storm at sea. He prayed to S. Louis to reveal to him whathad become of it. S. Louis appeared in heaven and showed that a certainlarge fish had swallowed the purse. The fish was caught, cut open, andinside it was the merchant’s{241} bag of gold. We see the fisherman toilingup from his boat with the heavy fish upon his shoulders, and then we seethe monks cutting open the fish, and the merchant and his wife receivingtheir money. So realistically is the scene presented, that we even seethe blood of the fish upon the bag.

The next picture has been terribly damaged, and it is difficult tounderstand the subject; but a learned gentleman of Perugia, to whom weare indebted for various most ingenious suggestions, fancies that it issimply the representation of some miracle of healing performed by theSaint in Rome; certainly Bonfigli has striven to combine in hisbackground a marvellous mixture of Roman and Etruscan architecture, thearch of Constantine mingling with Porta Susanna and the Colosseum!

The following fresco is perhaps the most delightful of the series. Itrepresents the burial of the Bishop of Toulouse. Now S. Louis is knownto have died in his father’s castle of Brignolles in Provence at theearly age of twenty-four, but all this was of very secondary importanceto the ingenuous Bonfigli. It was sufficient for him to know that a deadBishop had to be painted. He selected the architecture that he lovedbest—his own Perugian church of S. Pietro—he sliced it in half so thatall might look inside it, and on a bier in the centre of the aisle helaid the corpse of a quite middle-aged Bishop. With infinite care andfaithful precision he copied the lines of his church. The true basilicais here, not touched at all by decoration. There was no choir in thosedays; a dark blue sky looks in at the windows, the roof is bare with allits rafters showing. But the central figure is out of all proportion.The feet and the head of S. Louis of Toulouse almost touch the columnsin the aisle. His robe, with the golden fleur de lis, is neatly foldedround him, his mitre glistens in{242} the light; his face is grey and calm,and full of dignity and of repose. Bonfigli had a sense of humour andcould not refrain from a touch of caricature. It is impossible to lookat the group of monks and prelates round S. Louis, and not to feel atonce convinced of this. A fat and pompous Bishop, in golden cope andmitre, is saying the mass for the dead. His large red book is supportedby the head of a kneeling friar, and the very thumbs of this friarexpress his disgust and discomfort. To the left of the Bishop a group ofroaring monks take up his words and repeat them in dolorous voices. Onlyto look at their faces one knows that their litany is absolutely out oftune. At the head of the Saint another priest is reading in a book, hisacolytes swing incense, one holds the Bishop’s staff. The rest of thechurch is filled with quiet groups of men and women; and the mostcharming figure of the whole is that of a young man in a red gown with ashock of yellow curls, who kneels, lost in prayer, at the knees of thedead Saint, his back turned to us.

The next picture represents the siege of Perugia by Totila. No doubtthis siege—that most memorable event in the annals of Perugia—wasrather a chaos to the mind of Bonfigli as it is to many people nowadays;but the following history, taken from old chronicles, will explain thewhole fantastic pageant. It will be remembered that Totila besiegedPerugia in 549, and that the little town held out valiantly, but finallyfell into the power of the Goths. During a terrible siege the Bishop ofPerugia, S. Ercolano, attempted certain childlike and vain subterfugesof war, which unhappily ended in failure and in his own martyrdom.Ciatti, in his somewhat weariful and dreamy style, records the events ofthe siege as follows:—{243}

FIRST TRANSLATION OF THE BODY OF S. ERCOLANO(FRESCO IN THE PINACOTECA OF PERUGIA)

{244}

{245}

Thus fell Perugia. Our learned author goes on to describe how S.Ercolano was conducted to the ramparts and after his skin had been tornoff in strips from the neck downwards, he was beheaded and his bodythrown into the ditch. Some faithful adherents gave it secret burial,and finding the body of the foolish young acolyte near by, laid it inthe same grave. Later, Uliphus, governor of the city, allowed thePerugians to give their beloved pastor proper burial. To theastonishment of all beholders the Saint’s head was found joined to hisbody, which seemed like that of a man asleep. This miracle convertedmany of the Arian Goths to the Roman faith, and “with{246} rejoicings andhymns of praise the body of S. Ercolano was borne through the streets tothe church of S. Lorenzo.”

The next picture gives the burial of S. Ercolano. It is only a fragment,and we can hardly piece the scattered groups together. There is a lovelylittle group of ladies to the left—a set of typical Bonfigli women withexquisite white headgear. The curving front of the Palazzo Pubblico uponthe Corso is painted with accurate care, the loggia of Fortebraccio too,is clearly seen and understood. But the picture is only a shadow; thepart we most wish to see, namely, the north front of the Palazzo, iswholly obliterated, and the restoration spoils it terribly.

In the next fresco the body of S. Ercolano is being carried from S.Pietro to S. Lorenzo, and Bonfigli has seized this excellent opportunityto paint a fresh portrait of his native city. In the foreground thebasilica of S. Pietro with a colonnaded front and unfinished campanileis faithfully depicted, and behind the funeral procession (which by theway is moving in quite the wrong direction) the town towers up into thesky like a pack of yellow cards, broken only by its towers andcampaniles.[97]

Rooms VI. and VII.

Sala di Bonfigli and Sala di Bernardino di Mariotto.

Before leaving the subject of Bonfigli it will be well to look at someother pieces of his work which are painted in quite a different manner.Amongst these is a Madonna and Child (No. 13). It is a beautiful{247}specimen of the master’s purely pietistic painting.[98] Tradition saysthat Fra Filippo Lippi ordered this picture. It has suffered terribly,for in old days it was hung in the lavatory of S. Domenico, and as thefriars washed their hands they must have splashed the water up againstthe panels. No. 10, the Adoration of the Magi, is also by Bonfigli. Thepicture as a whole is perhaps more interesting than beautiful, inasmuchas it is one of the very few religious pictures of the Umbrian Schoolwhere the portraits of living people have been introduced. Orsini tellsus that the Madonna is a portrait of Bonfigli’s sister, the Child apicture of his nephew, and the youngest of the three kings that of hisbrother. The loveliest point in the picture is the group of angels up inthe roof. Bonfigli must, we think, have seen the swallows flitting atspringtime in and out of some low breezy barn, and put their movementsinto angels’ forms. The predella, too, is a perfect gem in itself,notably the panel of the Baptism where the wilderness is painted darkand brown, but the sunrise is full upon the figures of three angels whostand with crowns of roses on their heads and watch the scene among therocks. There is an Annunciation in the same room by Bonfigli; and itagain is chiefly charming because of the treatment of the angels. Theycome fluttering up behind a group of cypress trees, all in the flush ofdawn. But the foreground figure is strange indeed. What did Bonfiglimean when he painted S. Luke and his ox, and planted them there in themidst of the picture so as quite to distract one’s attention from theprincipal figures of the piece? In the next room (Sala VII.) Bonfigli’sangels can be studied with ease. There are in all eight panels of them,and it is interesting to see how{248} the early painter strove betweenrealism and idealism in the faces. He loved his smiling angels best;what care he took to crown them with pink roses; what baskets too ofroses he gave to them to carry! yet to his angels of the Passion he gaveno roses, only the symbols of the Crucifixion, its anguish and itsthorns.

We have lingered long over the work of a man whose figure is such anattractive one in the Umbrian school. Before passing on to the work ofhis contemporaries we must mention the name of another artist four ofwhose pictures are hung in the room of the Bonfigli angels: namely,Bernardino di Mariotto. Bernardino is an interesting figure in thegallery, and one is struck at first sight by the quality of his work,which differs from everything round it. He seems like some strangemissing link in the history of the Umbrian and the Roman school; and solittle is known about him that up to a quite recent date his work wasconfused with that, first of much earlier painters, and then ofPinturicchio. His treatment of detail: the Virgin’s gown, the garlandsof fruit and flowers, the angels’ wings and the saints’ dresses, isbeautiful though his colour is cold and hard. His peculiar use of a verystiff baldachin made people say that he was a master of Raphael. As amatter of fact he lived at S. Severino in the Marches and worked aboutthe years 1502 to 1521.

In the same room there are two big pictures by Bartolomeo Caporali, whowas a pupil of Perugino. His great flying angels in No. 12 are like theangels of Bonfigli gone mad, there is something grand in the rush oftheir wings, and whatever the faults of the somewhat exaggeratedcomposition, it forces one’s immediate attention.{249}

GONFALONE OF THE ANNUNCIATION BY NICCOLÒ ALUNNO

{250}

{251}

To return to the order of the earlier painters, we come to one or twonames which are probably more familiar to most people than that ofBonfigli: these are Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, Boccati da Camerino and NiccolòAlunno. There is a fine bit of Alunno’s work in Sala VII. (No 14). It isabout the only thing of his which is now attributed to him in Perugia.Such a host of angels singing and playing to God in the heavens, and acharming garden scene round the young Virgin! She kneels very quietly ather desk. Neat pots of flowers stand on the marble wall behind her andthree stiff cypress trees against the sky; round a corner of the gardenwall two very engaging angels stand gossiping together, their headsthrown back, their mouths a little pouting. In the immediate foregroundtwo patron saints are kneeling to introduce a group of lawyers whocommissioned the painting of the banner.

Boccati da Camerino’s work is rare. There is a charming thing of his inSala VI. (No. 13): a Madonna and a fascinating choir of angels. Hislargest picture (No. 16) is in the same room and represents the samesubject. The Madonna sits enthroned under a heavy pergola of roses, andall around her is a stiff little choir of angels: a most delightful andoriginal conception. The picture was painted for the monks of S.Domenico, and so the emblem of the saint, his dog, had to figure in it.What Boccati was about we cannot judge, but he certainly painted anermine instead of a dog, and the little Christ receives the strangebeast with delight. The predella of the picture is full of storiesalmost in the style of Carpaccio. Boccati had a rare and charming fancy.In his scene of the procession to Calvary, he shows how a rude soldierattempts to strike the fainting figure of Christ; and one of the horsesof{252} the guard, with ears bent back, stoops forward to bite the hand ofhim who would distress the Saviour.

Rooms VIII. and IX.

Sala di Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, Gabinetto di Fiorenzo di Lorenzo.

We now come to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, to whose name two rooms in thePinacoteca have been dedicated. Very little is known about his life. Wecan only gather that he studied in the school of Bonfigli, and that hecompeted with Bonfigli in the painting of banners. He may have been arather younger man, but he was earlier than Perugino and his scholars,and so he forms a sort of link between the masters and the pupils of agreat school.

Fiorenzo may be said to have begun the school which now is called theschool of Perugino. It was he who distinctly and for ever broke awayfrom that Greek or Byzantine influence which we feel in much ofBonfigli’s work. In his own day he was eclipsed by the greater lightswhich rose up round him, and it is only to us, who try to trace theschool, that he is such a really important and delightful figure.Throughout his work one feels a great effort towards light—towardsfresh issues. His drawing and his colour are often very beautiful, butthere is a great difference in the style of the various works ascribedto him. Compare No. 53 (Sala VIII.) and its surrounding panels, withNos. 30, 6, and 5. (The three latter probably all formed part of onelarge altar-piece.)

The Adoration, attributed to Fiorenzo, is a crowded but a beautifulcomposition. The Virgin, S. Joseph, and a group of shepherds kneel inthe foreground, and exquisite flowers, grape-hyacinths,{253}

ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS BY FIORENZO DI LORENZO

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even some fluffy heads of dandelion seed grow at their feet. Behind themis the stable—an Umbrian stable in an Umbrian landscape—filled with ahost of angels. In the dim distance the shepherds feed their flocks uponthe hills. The figures are mere sketches of some Umbrian goat-herds whomFiorenzo must have met outside the Umbrian farms at dawn. Nos. 10 and 16(in Sala IX.) are beautiful specimens of the master’s later work. Notethe hand and the crimson sleeves of the Virgin.

But if Fiorenzo could apply himself with the religious ardour of hisschool to sacred subjects, to the Bible of his art, he could alsosometimes take a holiday and write a fantastic and entrancingscherzoon his own account. It is his series of pictures on the life of SanBernardino of Siena which at once attracts us in the gallery. Here wefind one of those wonderful visions of the past—a record of men’smanners, of their costumes and architecture, as seen through the eyes ofsome intelligent yet child-like artist.[99] To describe the miracles isnot an easy matter. In seeking the subject one is carried away by thecharm of the models, just as the painter was who painted them. A companyof entrancing youths with long thin legs, their marvellous crimsontunics trimmed with fur, their small caps barely clinging to theirshocks of golden curls, strut up and down the panels, but barelyconscious of the Saint and all his patient care of them. No 3,represents{256} the miracle of a girl who has fallen into a well, and whomthe Saint has saved from drowning; we see a lovely and impassivecreature sitting upon the marble floor, her yellow hair has not beenwetted, the small red fillet binds it gracefully; her relations and herlovers pray and pose all round her, but little ruffled by the memory ofthe late catastrophe. Just the same is the accident of the mason,treated in No. 7. His comrades stand about the wounded man, exquisiteand undisturbed. “Ah,” they seem to say, “thus and thus it happened,thus, maybe, he fell”; but all the time they are thinking of theirwell-set tunics and of their long and lovely legs; and who can besurprised at this, seeing that theirtoilette is carried toperfection? No. 5 shows the capture and escape of a prisoner. It has apleasant landscape in the background, a sort of park, with a lake andtrees about it. In No. 6 the Saint appears in a cloud under a beautifulmarble palace and heals the blindness of a fellow friar. The doctors doseem somewhat interested, but everything is too beautiful and finishedfor much pity or, anyhow, for pain; and as for the hair of the young menin this panel, it is more excellently curled than in any of the series.The remaining miracles are by another hand. Some pupil or imitator ofFiorenzo tried to finish them, but the treatment is coarser, the charmof the first is gone.

Room V.

Sala dell’ Angelico.

Before passing on to the work of Perugino and his school, which one mustconfess, with the exception of Sala XI., is but a disappointing show ofcanvasses and panels, one passes through the little room of FraAngelico.{257}

In Taine’s slight but exquisite sketch of Perugia and its pictures weread the following words about the work of Fra Angelico at Perugia: “Hewas happier here than in his pagan Florence, and it is he who firstattracts us (in the gallery). Looking at his work there, one seems to bereading in the ‘Imitatio Christi,’ for on the golden background the puresweet faces breathe a quiet stillness, like the immaculate roses in thegardens of Paradise.” Taine is right; everyone is at once attracted tothe work of the Florentine monk when they come to the gallery ofPerugia. We have searched for some record of the friar’s visit toPerugia, but have not been successful. It is certain that the Florentinepainter came to stay in Umbria, leaving behind him as a legacy to laterpainters the influence of his pious gentle art. He became a monk in 1408at Fiesole, but his convent got mixed up in painful religious disputes,and the monks had to fly and wander into other lands, hoping to returnwhen times should be more peaceful. Fra Angelico came to Cortona, andthere did some of his very earliest work. Thence, very probably, hetravelled to Foligno, staying on his way to rest at Perugia, and leavingthere, in the church of S. Domenico, that wonderful picture, all theparts of which now hang together in the Pinacoteca. They are jewels,these small panels—jewels fresh as dewdrops on the first May wreaths ofgirls. Angelico never lost this bloom of utter purity, and here we findit at its very dawn. The Madonna and Child are in the centre; round themstand four angels, their baskets full of roses. “Two angels in longdresses,” says Taine, “bring their roses to the feet of the small Christwith the dreaming eyes. They are so young, and yet so earnest.” Again,of the Annunciation, he says: “The Virgin is candour and sweetnessitself; her character is almost German, and her{258} two hands are claspedwith deep religious fervour. The angel with the curly hair who kneelsbefore her seems almost like some young and happy girl—a little rawperhaps—and coming straight from the house of her mother.... Theseindeed, are the delicate touches that painters of a later date willnever find again. A sentiment is an infinite and incommunicable thing;no learning and no effort will ever reproduce it absolutely. In realpiety there is a certain reserve; a certain modesty is shown in thearrangement of the draperies and in the choice of little details, suchas even the best masters, only a century later, will not understand atall.” It is difficult to choose any particular point for description inthe twelve narrow panels of saints. Angelico carefully studied to showthe individual character of each. He gave to his Magdalen a new andlovely attitude—a sort of ascetic repose. Of her physical beauty heonly left the yellow hair; it falls to her ankles gold as the maize inautumn, but her body is wasted beneath it. St Catherine of Siena is saidto be a really authentic portrait of the Saint. The Bishop of Toulouseis unlike that of Bonfigli, younger and gentler in expression. The wholeset make an ineffably sweet impression on our mind, and it is difficultto turn to the other pictures in the room. Of these the best and themost interesting is by Piero della Francesca.

Piero was one of Perugino’s first masters. He was born early in thefifteenth century at Borgo San Sepolcro. He had a passion forperspective, and was one of the first men who made a real study of thisbranch of art. We hear that he wrote books on geometry, and grappledwith Euclid and the laws of measurement. He also studied the proportionof light and shade, and all these points are admirably proved by hispicture at Perugia (No. 21).{259} Vasari gives a full account of it in hislife of Piero. He describes the lower part, then adds: “Above them is amost beautiful Annunciation with an angel, which seems, in truth, tohave descended from heaven; and what is more, a range of columns inperspective, which is indeed most beautiful.” St Elizabeth of Hungary isa fine point in the lower composition. She wears a green gown, and inits skirt she carries the loaves which, by grace of heaven, and todefend her from the anger of her husband, were turned, as we know, toroses.

Room X.

Sala del Perugino.

An irresistible sense of sadness creeps over us as we pass through theroom which bears the name of Pietro Perugino. Looking at the collectionone feels much in the same frame of mind as one does in searching thewearisome domestic letters of a genius. Only one or two of the picturesattributed to Vannucci in the Pinacoteca of Perugia have the touch ofthe spirit in them. No. 25, which is double-sided like most of thealtar-pieces of convents, where the one side faced the congregation andthe other the monks or nuns, is a beautiful bit of Perugino’s work, fineboth in colour and in sentiment. No. 10, too, is a small gem from one ofPietro’s really beautiful altar-pieces.[100] Nos. 20 and 4 are fragmentsof one enormous altar-piece (see p.190), which used to hang in thechurch of S. Agostino and which like many others of Pietro’s finestworks was torn to pieces, and carried across the Alps to swell thegalleries{260} of Napoleon. One hurries shuddering past pictures like Nos.1, 5, and 26. It seems so impossible that what the Germans call a“Schöne Seele” should have allowed such things to be.

Room XI.

Sala di Bernardino di Betto detto il Pinturicchio.

In the little room which leads out of Room X. we make an interestingstudy of Perugino’s pictures, for it contains some of his earliest andalso some of his most decadent work. Had the municipality of Perugiajust a touch of humour or malice when they hung No. 25 side by side withNo. 16? Whatever they had in their heads they have given to us a curiousstudy. Here are two works by the same man, the latter probably apot-boiler of his school but still burdened with his name. Bothrepresent precisely the same subject, the same set of saints is in eachof them; but the early work is full of thought, of reverence andfeeling; the early Sebastian, calm and grave, has the arrow in his veryflesh, and the later Sebastian, simpering and affected, toys with hisarrow and turns with painful affectation to the Saviour. There is alovely little set of sketches on the predella under No. 6; the Nativity,a mere hurried impression, seems full of the breeze of early spring inUmbria.

We have a splendid bit of Pinturicchio’s work in this room which bearshis name, and also one of the rare paintings of Lo Spagna; one or twopictures which bear at least the name of Raphael, and the much disputed“Adoration” which has been ascribed to more than one distinguishedperson.

Bernardino di Betto, usually known as Pinturicchio{261} and sometimes as ilSordicchio because he was deaf, and small and of a mean appearance,studied in the school of Perugia, and indeed was one of its mostdistinguished painters; but having left that earliest studio he carriedhis talents to other parts, and painted as we know for popes andprinces, painted above all things those two wonderful series of frescoesin the Duomo at Siena and in the Borgia rooms at the Vatican. He hasbeen called sometimes the Umbrian Gozzoli; certainly he was thehistorical painter of the great school which grew in the times ofPerugino. Vasari with a certain prejudice and ill nature insists thatPinturicchio’s success was one rather of opportunity than of talent; butit is much more probable that the painter was beloved because he wasfaithful to his promises and carried out his orders with care and withprecision. We know, too, that after all the sums he got, and all hisheavy labours, he died of hunger and neglect on a winter’s night atSiena, his wife having deserted him and eloped with a new lover.

Pinturicchio had a grant of land given to him in the neighbourhood ofPerugia in 1495, by Alexander VI., and he determined to return to hisnative city and live there; but some years later, when in moneydifficulties, he was forced to sell it to a gentleman of Perugia.

The splendid altar-piece (No. 10), which alone remains to Perugia ofthis distinguished pupil of Perugino, is ill lighted and ratherdifficult to judge from top to bottom, but is interesting as well asbeautiful; for the picture remains just as the painter painted it withall its panels in their proper order, unlike the panels of so many ofPerugino’s finest altar-pieces. The Pietà, the angel of theAnnunciation, both the figures of the Virgin and the detail of theirdresses, fruit and books, are exquisitely finished.

There is in the same room an excellent specimen of{262} the work of anotherof Perugino’s scholars—Lo Spagna (No. 7). Giovanni di Pietro was one ofthe most distinguished of Vannucci’s school, and Kugler indeedpronounces him to bethe most distinguished after Raphael. It isprobable that he studied with Fiorenzo di Lorenzo before going toVannucci’s studio, but it is difficult to discover any details about hisprivate life. His whole career is shrouded in some mystery. His namewould make one think he was Spanish by birth. We know that he leftPerugia and went to live at Spoleto. Vasari declares that this wasbecause the painters of Perugia were jealous of him and made life intheir midst impossible; this fact is however severely denied by ourgossip Mariotti, who declares that Lo Spagna was excessively well off inSpoleto, where he not only received the rights of citizenship but alsosecured a charming wife. Be all this as it may, of this really goodartist, who combined in his work the influence of Raphael and ofPerugino, only one piece is left in the place where he learned his art.The Madonna and Saints (No. 7) is a fine specimen of his work. Themother and the child are fresh and beautiful in colour and expression,and all the details of the dresses and the landscape infinitely careful.Note St Jerome, his gloves, his book, his hat and splendid gown. Oneother picture is ascribed to Giovanni in the same room, but it isgreatly inferior in treatment.

We now come to the Adoration of the Magi, which after much dispute wassome time ago ascribed to Perugino’s scholar Eusebio di San Giorgio, butwhich is still the subject of endless local discussions, as, owing tofurther and more minute investigations it is at length declared byexcellent judges to be the work of Raphael. One reason given for this isthat the young man to the right of the Virgin has on his trousers a{263}strange design, the arms of Raphael. Poor Eusebio must turn in hisgrave. His former biographers, anxious to seize on any gem of paintingwhich should save the artist from a rather mediocre position in thehistory of art, always stayed to shout exultant praises when they cameto this picture, and now the critic would tear even this glory from hisbrows and crown another man whose head is already heavy with theirlaurels.[101]

No. 20—a Madonna and Child—is ascribed to Raphael. The picturecertainly has something of the master in it and it may be the work ofthe mere boy, when first he came from Urbino to paint with Perugino, andin the Umbrian city dreamed his great Madonna of the future. RaphaelSanzio passes like a dream through Perugia, leaving no certain relic ofhis mighty fame save one faint faded fresco on the church wall of S.Severo, and these poor relics in the gallery.[102]

Room XII.

Sala di Giannicola e di Berto di Giovanni.

From this point forwards the interest of the gallery begins to wane. Wehave tracked the dawn and seen{264}the sunrise; now we feel the dull warmthof midday, and passing through the weary hours of the afternoon, mostfully and amply represented in the work of the two Alfanis, we pass tonight through the fevered rooms of the Decadence. Sala XII. is devotedto the work of Perugino’s scholars, but most of it is weak. Still thereis a touch of the old sweetness here and there among the figures. NoteNo. 15 by Giannicola Manni. It has a charm though it is very imitative.The rest of Giannicola’s work in this room is rather dreary. But thereis charm, too, in the purely imitative, nay copied work of Berto diGiovanni. Berto was another of Perugino’s scholars. He lived probablytowards the end of the fifteenth century and it is evident that he felta passionate admiration for his fellow student, Raphael. All we cangather of facts about Berto comes to us through his connection withRaphael. In 1516 he contracted to paint, in combination with his hero, apicture for the nuns of Monteluce. Bits of the predella are now in thePinacoteca. In the flat and almost womanish sketches of Berto one traceshis persistent admiration for the greater artist. It is as though anintelligent child had torn the leaves from its mother’s sketch-book andfilled in the lines with faithful and laborious colouring. (See Nos. 19to 26.) But Berto’s charm, such as it is, went all wrong when he triedto paint big subjects. Nos. 16 and 14 are little more than failures.

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

To anyone who admires the work of the two Alfani, Domenico and Orazio, ahappy hunting-ground exists in the last big rooms of the Pinacoteca. Howit came about that one of Perugino’s really lovely frescoes got hung inthis part, we cannot tell, but it is certain that the Nativity (No. 31,Room XIII.) is one of the loveliest things that remain of Pietro in thetown of Perugia. It is very like our own Nativity in the{265} NationalGallery, faint and fair in colour, calm and true in composition, with apeculiar lilac colour of crushed grapes throughout the dresses and thelandscape.

It would be impossible to close any account of the school of Peruginowithout a slight sketch of the two Alfanis whose intense admiration forthe genius of painting became a fault, and who, through their veryearnestness preserved the corpse from which the life long since hadfled. The Alfanis, Domenico the father, and Orazio the son, had moneyand long life. These two happy gifts they employed in the paths of art;with these two gifts they at length degraded what they really attemptedto exalt. Domenico was such a passionate admirer of Raphael that one ofhis historians declared him to have died in the same year as Sanzio.Mariotti denies this. “However passionate a friend and inseparable acompanion,” he urges, “Domenico had not for certain such a crazy follyas to accompany him to the other world.” Domenico far outlived Raphael.In his long life he absorbed the teaching of many schools, and utterlyobliterated his own personality in the work of other people. His sonOrazio did the same. They went into partnership, started a large schoolor studio, and there created the innumerable, rather middle-classpictures, which cover the walls of the Pinacoteca. Grazio survived hisfather about thirty years, and was the first president of the Academy ofPerugia founded in 1573.

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

One word to close these notes about the painters of the Umbrian school.

Seek out the painters in the places where they painted. Go to Spoletofor the works of Lo Spagna, to Gubbio for the masterpiece of Nelli, toSpello for Pinturicchio, to Foligno for the early men who have not evennames. Go in May to Montefalco, when{266} all the green of Umbrian angels’wings is in the lanes which lead to these. Learn by heart the Umbrianlandscape if you wish to really love and understand the spirit ofUmbrian art. The Pinacoteca of Perugia serves only as a backbone for thegenuine study.[103]

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CHAPTER XI

The Museum,[104] and Tomb of the Volumnii

HAVING traced the first Etruscan walls and seen the tomb of theVolumnii, a note of sombre and half melancholy interest will inevitablyhave been struck upon our mind whilst trying to realise the lives ofthose mysterious people who created these things and left these dumbindications—dumb, because the language is so dead—upon the countrywhere they lived and died. This note is of course by no means confinedto the mind of the passing traveller. It is the people of the placeitself who feel it most, and in Perugia, thanks to their efforts, wehave, in the museum at the University, a very complete, if only a smallcollection of the relics of Etruscan civilization as found in theimmediate neighbourhood. In a small book written by Signor Lupatelliupon the growth of the museum, we read that the noble families of theplace have always loved to trace their earliest ancestors by carefullycollecting any sarcophagi or other relics which they found upon theirlands. In this way the Museum has been formed, and a crowd of tombs,laid open by the plough or winter rains, have been preserved with alltheir treasures in them.[105]

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The study of the Etruscans is, after all, the study of the dead, and anEtruscan Museum has about it all the mysterious atmosphere of the tomb.What barrier greater, what ocean more profound, than that betweenourselves and this dead people! Their tombs, their busts, theirplaythings and inscriptions seem to chill the very air around them.Ordinary people, not students of archæology, must face this fact quiteboldly and come prepared to plunge head foremost into a very chillyatmosphere if they wish to learn about the ancient Etruscans. Thepresent writers are bound to confess, that, on glad spring mornings,they have turned from the sarcophagi and the bronzes and terra-cottavases in the cases to look with undisguised delight through the windowsof the museum and up beyond to the brown roofs of the wicked oldmediæval city opposite. The Duomo with all the blood upon its steps, thePiazza with all its passionate and burning history, seemed to them morereal, more sympathetic, than the uneventful countenances, the harmlessfunereal urns, of this quiet race of men, who lived and died over onethousand years before our era.

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VIA DELLA PERA UNDER THE AQUEDUCT ON THE WAY TO THEUNIVERSITY

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It is probable that when the Rasenae first arrived in central Italy,they were still an almost barbarous nation, and that their arts andcivilization were developed later in their northern settlements, inTuscany and Umbria. They seem to have adopted little from the races whopreceded them in Italy, though some say that they learned the art ofstatuary from these still more mysterious people; but, being, as weknow, themselves a sea-faring nation they may have taken their firstconceptions of art from the Carthaginians and Phœnicians, and in thisway they might easily have come in contact with the art of Egypt and ofCarthage. But by far the strongest influence was that of Greece. Thisthey perhaps felt first in Greece itself, and later through theircontact with Greek settlers in Italy.

The Etruscans were a receptive people; they easily grasped a new idea,and carried it out with careful precision, though with rounded edges, soto speak. The spirit of the inspiration of pure art is lacking in theirwork. They were excellent craftsmen, and Rome is said to have learnedcertain points in the uses of casting metal and in masonry from Etruscanartisans. They were also an agricultural people, who did much towardsimproving the soil wherever they settled. The Etruscans were a veryreligious, or at least a superstitious race, full of faith in augury,constantly consulting natural oracles, such as the flight of birds andvariations of the atmosphere, and, like the Greeks, they had theirhousehold gods orlares. The Medusa’s head is for ever recurring intheir monuments and on their house-doors. Having some strong belief inthe immortality of the human soul, they crowded their dead with gifts,putting their most elaborate work upon the tombs, and giving to thecorpse all the necessaries for a long journey to a distant land, or fora possible reawakening. They had{272} different modes of burial. Usually thebody was burned, but sometimes—and we have admirable instances of thisin the Perugian Museum—it was simply buried in a stone sarcophagus.Women were respected and held a high position in society. This fact isclearly shown by their prominence upon the tombs, where they sit side byside with their husbands, as they were probably in the habit of doing attheir feasts. The toilet was also respected, and the dead took as manypots of balsam to the grave as they took tear-bottles. The richer bodieshave a wonderful array of dressing-table nicknacks at their head andfeet, and the loveliest and most careful work in the whole museum isthat upon the hand-mirrors (see Case 12, Room vi.), which were alsoprobably laid in the tomb of the beloved dead.

The chief interest in this museum of Perugia is the wealth of itsinscriptions. The passages are lined with them, and a catalogue ordictionary has been made of them. The Etruscans lived side by side withthe Romans and the Greeks, and often we find inscriptions written inboth languages upon one tomb; yet, though the two latter peoples werethe greatest scholars of the world, the Etruscan language is dead to usfor all practical purposes; and the longest Etruscan inscription whichis known—the pride of the Perugian Museum—is little better than ablank wall to all who look to it for purposes of study.[106]

The Etruscans lived luxurious lives, but their race ran long upon thesoil of Italy. As far as it can be traced, their rule, or at least theiroccupation, lasted for about twelve centuries. By the beginning of theChristian era they were already dying out.{273}

M. André Lefèvre gives the following final summing up of the influenceof the Etruscans upon the greater nation which gradually took theirplace:—

As it would have been impossible in the slight scope of this small bookto give any detailed account of the different objects in the Perugianmuseum, we have thought it wiser to offer the above sketch of theEtruscans themselves, adding only some promiscuous notes about thecollections for those who care to read them as they pass through thedifferent rooms. The new Catalogue by Signor Donati, the profound worksof Count Conestabile and Signor Vermiglioli, and the delightful chapterin Dennis’Etruria contain all the information that a genuine studentwill desire.

Room II.

Case A.

Cases B. and C.

Case D

Room III.

Sarcophagi.

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Room IV.

Case A.

Case B.

Case D.

Room V.

Room VI.

Room VII.

RoomS VIII. AND IX.

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Room VIII.

Case H.

ETRUSCAN MIRROR IN GUADABASSI COLLECTION

Case L.

Case H.

Case P.

Room IX.

Case G.

Hospes lege et luge.

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To close these notes on the museum we would mention another privatemuseum in Perugia full of extraordinary interest; that of ProfessoreGiuseppe Bellucci, in the Via Cavour.

Prof. Bellucci has made a special study of the people who preceded theEtruscans in Umbria, and, after years of careful search andindefatigable energy, has accumulated a grand collection of objectsbelonging to the stone age, and to the earliest settlers on the hills.Arrow heads, battleaxes from Trasimene, pottery and ornaments ofinfinite variety, are carefully stored and arranged in the top rooms ofone of the most charming of the old Perugian palaces; also a surprisingcollection of amulets against witches and the evil eye, of which Prof.Bellucci has made a special study. This museum can be visited by anyonewho is interested in the subject, and its owner is always willing toshow it.[107]

The Tomb of the Volumnii.

About three miles from Perugia, down at the foot of one of the lasthills which fall into the valley of the Tiber, a mysterious necropolisofPerusia Etrusca was discovered many years ago on the property ofCount Baglioni. It was a big necropolis full of innumerable urns of moreor less artistic interest, and the land about the hill seemedhoneycombed with small vaults holding their respective sarcophagi andashes.

Some time later—so tradition tells us—whilst a peasant was driving hisoxen over a field in this same place one of the oxen fell forward. Whenthe man came up to see what had happened, he found that the creaturehad{283} stumbled through the stones of a great arch which covered ahitherto unsuspected subterranean passage.[108]

When the hole thus made was examined it was found to be in truth a steepstaircase cut in the tufa and covered over by a travertine vaulting. Itled steeply down to a huge door of travertine, and when this was opened,the wonderful tomb, belonging to the private family of the Volumnii, wasdisclosed. Unfortunately the ox was not the first person to open up thisextraordinary place. The earth and dust of centuries had, it is true,fallen in upon it, but in the Roman times it had been already ransackedfor its possible treasures. Beautiful and extraordinary as the place is,haunted by the silent grandeur and mystery of the dead, it is not quitecomplete, and many of the urns are missing in its first compartments.Still, as Dennis says, “it is one of the most remarkable in Etruria....To enter the tomb,” he continues was to him “like enchantment, notreality, or rather it was the realization of the pictures ofsubterranean palaces and spell-bound men, which youthful fancy had drawnfrom the Arabian Nights, but which had long been cast aside into thelumber room of the memory, now to be suddenly restored.... Theimpressions received in this tomb first directed my attention to theantiquities of Etruria,” Dennis adds, and many people will echo hiswords.

Leaving the dust and the sunlight, the green trees and the sunny banksof the outside Umbrian world, we plunge down a narrow staircase andthrough the{284} tall doorway of travertine into the darkness of theEtruscan sepulchre, and find ourselves in a dim, low vestibule withstone seats round it, small chambers branching off to right and left,and one large chamber at the end. Strange and fascinating heads lookdown upon us from the ceiling, marvellous little deities, suspended bymany leaden chains, hang silent, as though they dreamed, above ourheads. Weird serpents’ heads pierce through the walls and seem to hissat us; and in the dim light of the candles we realize a whole new worldof wonderful and deep set imagery, combining with that solid sense ofcomfortable respectability peculiar to the race of men who lie here.

The tomb of the Volumnii has a strong and a convincing individuality. Inthis fact consists its charm. The necropolis was built for one family.The clear cut inscription on the door post at the entrance points tothis, the name repeated again and again upon the tomb proves it yet moreforcibly.[109]

To get a first and full impression of the place it is well to sit downon one of the low stone seats which{285} run round the walls of thevestibule. These benches were probably used by members of the family inthe peculiar fashion of the Etruscans. We hear that in order to bringthemselves nearer to the dead and to communicate with the Spirit ofDeath, they would come to the sepulchres at night-fall and sleep besidethe urns of their dead friends—their brothers, wives, their children ortheir lovers—and there receive visions from the souls which alwayshovered near the place where the body was buried. Members of theVolumnii family who were courageous enough, or peaceful enough in theirown souls to do this thing, must have received strong and convincingvisions from surroundings so unearthly and mysterious.

A great round disk, the sun probably, guards the entrance door of thevestibule. It seems to rise up out of the sea; two dolphins plunge headforemost into the waves beneath it; and under these, above the leftlintel of the door, a great wing stretches, one knows not whence orwhither, into the darkness all around it.

On the opposite wall, and guarding the tomb, is another great diskcovered with scales, or as some say laurel leaves, and a splendid headin its centre. The face is grandly moulded and belongs to the bestperiod of Etruscan art, when the souls of the artists were probablysteeped in the art of Greece. The expression is calm, pure, and full ofstrength. It is probably meant to represent the God Numa, though someimagine it to be Apollo himself. Below it are two busts which aresupposed to be portraits of Apollo in his two qualities of shepherd andof poet; and guarding the disk, two great scimitars with birds perchedover them. (It is imagined that the Etruscans shared the Greek beliefabout birds sympathising in the death of mortals. The flight and ways ofbirds, certainly formed a large part of their religion, but in thiscase{286} nothing can be actually proved). Vermiglioli having studiedvarious other points in the necropolis, suggests that the Volumnii werea race of warriors and that the scimitars were a symbol of their warlikeways.

Passing through this second doorway one stands in the actual presence ofsome members of the family of the Volumnii. There they sit together ontheir beautiful stuccoed urns: “each on a snow-white couch” says Dennis,“with garlanded brow, torque-decorated neck, and goblet in hand—apetrifaction of conviviality—in solemn mockery of the pleasures towhich for ages on ages they have bidden adieu.”[110]

They are surprisingly real, this family, and they sit there now, justexactly as they were sitting two thousand years or more ago.[111] Thefigures and the sarcophagi are made of terra-cotta covered by a deadwhite stucco which gives them a singularly modern look. Each sarcophagushas the head of a Medusa on it, but of a marvellously fair Medusa, acreature to adore, a woman to attract, a creature incapable of inspiringaught save admiration.[112]

The sarcophagus in the centre of the group appears to have belonged toAruns Volumnius the head of the family. It is the most heavily decoratedof the set. Aruns lies on a well-draped couch. Two mysteriousfigures—Furies, but attractive Furies—guard his urn. They are asplendid piece of work, and have naturally enough been compared with thework of Michelangelo; there is something muscular about them, and theirpose{287}

TOMB OF ARUNS VOLUMNIUS

is tragic, like that which the sculptor of the Renaissance delighted togive to his figures. Unfortunately the fresco, which was perfect whenthe tomb was opened, has fallen to bits in the damp air which entersthrough the open door. To Aruns’ left his daughter sits on her urn, tohis right his son, and next to his son the beautiful young wife Veilia,or Velia. One could write a romance about Veilia. The beauty of herprofile haunts one like a dream. Was she an Etruscan{288} or some woodlandcreature? Surely the dull and conventional gentleman to whom she wasearly married bored her into a decline? Certain it is that she diedyoung, and that the sculptor who made this portrait of her, loved andunderstood the beauty of her human face, and drew it in as faithfully ashe had drawn the dull one of her husband and his family. All the otherportraits have the usual respectable Etruscan stamp upon them. Veiliaalone has a touch of the divine.

One beautiful little sarcophagus in the group differs from all aroundit. It is exquisite in all its detail and built in the form of a templewith doors and Corinthian columns, pent roof, and exquisite tracery uponits walls. (The inscriptions upon it are written both in Roman andEtruscan characters; but although this sounds like a delightfuldictionary they do not appear to coincide.) Four exquisite sphinxes anda little frieze of lions’ heads guard the roof; heavy garlands of fruitand flowers hang from the skulls of oxen on the panels; and birds andbutterflies—symbols of the immortality of the human soul—aremarvellously carved about them.

The remaining cells have each some beautiful and interesting thing inthem, but the main historical interest is passed after the chambers ofthe Volumnii urns; and the most beautiful things to note are the headsof the Gorgons or Medusas carved in the tufa of the ceilings. Some saythat these heads are portraits of the family. Their eyes and teeth arepainted white. They seem to stare at one with calm kind eyes which havelooked into the centuries and realised the futility of human things.

To the present writers the Medusa of the Etruscan{289} people is itsgreatest and its most attractive study. She is always grand, beautifuland mysterious; the material and conventional aspects of the Etruscanrace vanish and fly before her steady gaze, and in the Volumnian tombshe reigns supreme.{290}

CHAPTER XII

In Umbria

WE cannot study the history of a single town without acquiring a certainknowledge of the towns around it, for the character of one set of peoplewas formed and influenced by that of another, and the land on whichcities are built is often in itself an explanation of their past. In nocountry perhaps are these facts more strongly marked than in Umbria,where even the smallest hamlet is perched upon a high hill-side asthough to provoke attention, and where the larger cities glare at eachother from commanding eminences, seeming, even in this peacefulnineteenth century, to challenge one another by the mere aspect of theirmighty walls.

We cannot stay long in Perugia without getting its surrounding landscapestamped upon our minds. That circle of small cities so distinctly seen:Assisi,{291} Spello, Foligno to the east, Montefalco, Trevi, Bettona, andTorgiano to the south, and Città della Pieve westwards, all of themperched upon their separate hill-top around the bed of the now vanishedlake (see chapter i.), excite one’s fancy and one’s longing, at firstperhaps unconsciously, and later with an irresistible persistence.Finally we are driven to pack our trunks and wander out amongst them.

From a practical point of view, travelling in Umbria, even in its mostremote villages, is made extremely easy. The inhabitants are friendlyand courteous, and utterly unspoiled by tourists. The inns are clean,the main roads excellent; prices reasonable, and carriages, with fewexceptions, good. From a romantic or artistic point of view, nothing canexcel the charm of such travelling. We are weary of hearing the statedfact that every town in Italy is worth the visiting; but, howeverhackneyed the remark, we must make it once again in the case of thetowns around Perugia. Each has an individual charm, a long and carefullyrecorded history. We exclude Assisi, for that town is a study in itself,a thing above and apart. Assisi may be called the Jerusalem of Italy;its connection with one of the greatest Saints of the Catholic world hasmade its churches monuments of art and history, a centre for pilgrimsand for painters throughout a period of nearly seven hundred years; andquite apart from its history as a town (the walls of Assisi date back to400B.C.) this presence or possession of the saints has excited a wholeliterature of art and of devotion.

But besides the towns we have mentioned above, there are a host of othercities very near: Gubbio, Arezzo, Città di Castello, Terni, Spoleto,Narni, Orvieto, Chiusi, Cortona and many others less or{292} better known.It is the diversity and contrast of these towns which charms one, butspace forbids that we should offer anything beyond a few smalltravelling notes concerning one or two of them.

Gubbio.

The road to Gubbio from Perugia leads over a mountain pass as wild, andas forbidding in its aspect, as that of any in the Alps. Leaving thebroad and wooded valley of the Tiber it winds in long fantasticwind-swept curves across the spines of the lower Apennines, then plungessomewhat suddenly down into the smiling fields and oak woods of thevalley under Gubbio. The position of the town is most remarkable. Itlooks out on a smiling peaceful valley, but is backed by a terrificmountain gorge which would serve as an iron breastplate in the time ofsiege. Gubbio is a small brown-coloured town, compact and perfect in itsparts; it has never changed since the middle ages. A fine Roman theatre,a mysterious Roman mausoleum, fallen asleep on the cornfields outsidethe city walls, tell of her early prime, but the character of the place,as we see it now, is purely mediæval. The people themselves have thespirit of their ancestors; the worship, which is almost like a fetishworship, of their patron Saint Ubaldo is as passionate in its intensityto-day as it was seven hundred years ago, when Barbarossa threatened todestroy the town.[113] There is{293} scarcely a single new building inGubbio. The great weaving-looms in the piazza are a relic of the city’scommerce in the Middle Ages, and the exquisite line of the palace of herrulers, Palazzo dei Consoli, with the slim bell tower soaring up againstthe barren outline of the gorge, lives in one’s memory long after manyother points of Umbrian cities are forgotten.

Gubbio’s bell tower and Gubbio’s Madonna are points which we rememberwith delight. Almost every Umbrian city has its local painter. Nelli isthe painter of Gubbio and the gem of all his works has been left on theactual wall for which it first was painted. It was icy wintry weather,although the month was May, when we arrived at Gubbio, but in the fieldsall round it the flax shone grey and blue like a lagune. Had Nelli seensuch flax fields when he painted his Madonna’s and his angels’ gowns?The stuffs he gave them were as blue, as pure, as all these flowers puttogether.[114]

{294}

Spello.

Early one morning we left Perugia and passed along the plain to Spello.We found it in a halo of May sunlight. There was nothing grim orforbidding, nothing Etruscan about the smiling little town; the sunlightand the air crept into the heart of its streets and seemed to lingerthere. Yet these were narrow and steep and made for war and not forpeace or comfort, just like the streets of Perugia. Their characterindeed is so purely mediæval and untouched, that the chains whichguarded them at nightfall are even left hanging in one place to thewalls.

Right away from the town amongst the olive trees we came to the conventof S. Girolamo. There in the back of the choir is the little fresco ofthe Marriage of the Virgin by Pinturicchio—faint in colour and fragilein outline, but charming in its composition.

Pinturicchio is the painter of Spello; there is much of his work in thechurches. He came there to paint for Troilo, one of the Baglioni, lordsof Spello. Hence he was called to Siena to do his well-known series offrescoes for the Piccolomini. A whole chapel in S. Maria Maggiore iscovered with his works, and he has put his own portrait amongst themwith a string of beads, a brush and palette hanging from it. Theartist’s face is thin and melancholy, but the frescoes round it arelarge in line and treatment and some of the best specimens of hisreligious work. There they stand mouldering mysteriously in the dimlight of the little old church for which this master made them fourhundred years ago. We lingered long before them, then passed back intothe sunlit street and drove away through the gate of the town with theRoman senators{295} above it and out across the hot dry plain to the city ofFoligno.[115]

Foligno.[116]

Sunk, as it were, in a broad basin of plain, through which the quietwaters of Clitumnus drain slowly to the Tiber, is the city ofFoligno—that city which Perugia so detested, so offended in the past.The town has all the character of the towns of the plain. Drivingthrough its straight and even streets we felt as though we were inLombardy, in Padua or Ferrara. There were Lombard lions in the porch andLombard beasts around the arch of the Duomo. The houses were all shutup, square, silent, cool, preparing, as it seemed, for summer heat anddust, and infinite hours of afternoon. The place was flat and drowsy,but we liked it and studied in its churches with delight.

Niccolò Alunno is the painter of Foligno. Some of his work is scatteredthrough the churches, and more is gathered together in the smallPinacoteca together with that of other early Umbrian masters. Very goldand brown the frescoes seemed, very sober and religious in theirsentiment. Here one could study the Umbrian school, apart from thePeruginesque, and it struck us that the art of the first Umbrianpainters was a natural, and (if one may say so in this age of critics)an inspired one, which sprang straight up from the soil about the feetof the painters, and was only influenced{296} at certain purely decorativepoints by the teaching of the Florentines. The angels were the Umbrianchildren, well groomed, well fed, and wholly unaffected. NeitherPaganism nor Christianity had very much to do with them. When Perugino’sripened influence came in, they weakened as garden flowers weaken, intheir power of appeal through pure simplicity. The first faces ofUmbrian saints and angels were simple like the Umbrian dog-rose.Perugino turned them into garden roses. Both in their way were fair, butthe former flowers seemed nearer the divine than those which had beentrained and cultivated.

It is not possible to mention here all the pictures of Foligno. Thereare two fine Alunnos in S. Niccolò; and a rather surprising Mantegnawith the colour of brown wine—colour of passion and pain, which clasheswith the Perugino just beside it—on the chapel of the Nunziatella. ThePalazzo Communale is covered with the work of Nelli, but one feels thatthe painter who so loved what was gay and rich and beautiful (see hispicture at Gubbio) wanted a lot more gold and ultramarine than hispatron allowed him when painting the ceiling of this chapel.

Before leaving Foligno we went into the church of S. Maria infra Portas.It is so old, this little low basilica, that it has sunk quite deep intothe soil around it. Inside are many faded frescoes, brown and gold, andfull of almost painful early sentiment. As we stood among them in thedusk, a blackbird poured a flood of freshest song in through the doorfrom the light of the courtyard. “How your bird sings!” we said to thecustode. “Yes,” said the man; “he sings all day; but whether for love orrage I cannot tell.” ... And it struck us that no Umbrian of a hilltown, or no Perugian anyway, would have made this profoundly melancholystatement about a tame bird’s song.{297}

Montefalco

The road from Foligno to Montefalco leads all along the flat at first,through the peaceful vale of the Clitumnus. Sometimes we crossed thewater and saw the reeds and rushes growing, and felt the cool freshbreath of the enchanted stream. Then passing under a mediævalwatch-tower we left the flat land and began the steep ascent toMontefalco.

The town stands on a hill in the very heart of Umbria, and hence it iscalled by the people theringhiera d’Umbria. We saw it “on a day ofmany days,” and it struck us that this was the site of the city of ourdreams—the best, the fairest we had ever met in travel. The sun was lowas we drove through the gates. Far below us and around us stretched theUmbrian landscape, the bed of the old Umbrian lake: long green waves ofblue and green, seething in the heated air of the May afternoon.[117]

The town felt very quiet and deserted. The grass grew everywhere throughthe stones of its piazza. In silence the children played, in silence thewomen sat at their doors, the place had fallen asleep. But once the cityknew prosperity, and many painters climbed the steep roads from theplain below, and came to Montefalco to leave some impress of their artupon the walls of chapels and of churches. Hither came Benozzo Gozzoliin 1449, and here he painted many of his early frescoes. What broughtthe{298} splendid Florentine to the tiny town we wondered? He came in thevery prime of his youth, and they say that he did so, simply because hewas connected with the Dominicans of the place. Certainly he settledhere for seven years or so, did good work, and spread the influence ofFlorence throughout the minds of the rising Umbrian masters. Benozzo’searly work at Montefalco is fresh, raw, naïve. It lacks the finish andthe gilded ornaments of the Riccardi chapel, but in exchange it holds acertain simple and religious sentiment which is lacking in his laterfrescoes. The best of his paintings are in the church of S.Francesco,[118] and there are several other good pictures of the Umbrianpainters here—a fine Tiberio d’Assisi and some things by Melanzio. Inone of the latter, a portrait of the painter by himself—a tall, slimyouth with long light hair and earnest face full of quiet thought andstrength. Melanzio is the painter of Montefalco, and luckily his work iswell preserved in many of the churches. The little frieze of angelsplaying with carnations above the left hand altar as one enters thechurch of the Illuminata, is one of the most fascinating bits of detailthat we have ever seen.

Before leaving Montefalco we drove out to the convent of S. Fortunato,which lies to the east of the town. There were pictures there—of thesewe remember little; but the lanes which led to the convent we nevershall forget. They were warm deep lanes and the hedges above were fullof dog-roses and honeysuckle, the light inside was green and blue likethe landscape down upon the plain. The lanes of Montefalco were asbeautiful{299} a vision as we have ever seen. Like the frescoes of Melanziothey had the colour of a tropic butterfly, and like the flight ofbutterflies they hover in our memory.

Foligno to Spoleto.

In the very height of the midday we left Foligno and took the road toSpoleto. It is a fine broad road, passing along the site of the oldFlaminian Way, grand, dusty, white, with a feeling that Rome is at theend of it, and Umbria but a little land to be passed quickly by. As wetrundled along in our clumsy landau dragged by a pair of miserablehorses, we thought of all the popes, the emperors and legions, who,going south or northwards, had passed in this direction. The dust flewup and almost choked us; it was the week of the wild roses, and thehedges were all aglow with their delicious blossoms, their petals bentwide back as though to catch the very essence of the sunlight on theirgolden stamens. We left the main road a little below Trevi, and drivingthrough fields and oak woods, passed up the hills by a steep short cutwhich leads to the town above. This road cannot be recommended totravellers unless they go on foot; our poor little city horses struggledpainfully over the sand and pebbles of the numerous streams it crosses.But what a stretch of country for the artist! Everywhere the poppieswere in flower—a shimmer of pure cadmiums and carmines under the oaksand the olives. After about an hour’s climb we came out suddenly on thebroad bastions of the road which runs from Trevi to the convent of S.Martino.

Trevi.

The tiny town of Trevi is a familiar object to all who pass along theline to Rome. It stands, as one expects{300} all Umbrian towns to stand, acrown of buildings closely packed upon a little hill-top. The city feltbare and baked when we entered it, and we left it soon to wander roundits bastion-road; a thing which was fairer far than all the pictures inthe churches.[119] Long we sat in the grasses, tracing out the landmarksin the heat mist far below us: Montefalco in the foreground, Perugiabehind it, Assisi and Spello a little to the right, and, sunk in thebroad plain of the Clitumnus, just as Raphael painted them four hundredyears ago, the houses and the towers of Foligno.

The Temple of Clitumnus.

Barely three miles from Trevi, just off the dusty road, in the burningheat of a brewing storm, we came to the Temple of Clitumnus. Thismarvellously romantic spot needs no description of ours, for the tinytemple seems to hold the very essence of what is best in pagan art andworship, and its praises have been sung by classic poets throughout thecourse of centuries.[120]

{301}

THE TEMPLE OF CLITUMNUS

With the following stanzas passing through one’s mind, one may lingervery long and pleasantly down by the water’s edge, and dragging one’shands in the cool stream, and looking towards the temple up above, dreamgolden dreams of river gods and hamadryads as well as of “milk whitesteer.”{302}

Spoleto.

Late in the light of a thundery evening we drove into the town ofSpoleto. As our weary horses dragged us through the city gates, and upand under the walls of the silent town, a sort of terror and of gloompossessed our spirits. Here was something new and big and strange. Whatdid it mean? Gradually we became accustomed{303} to the spirit of the place,and seemed to realise the reason of its grim impression.

For days we had been steeped in Umbrian landscape as one expects to knowit nowadays, in gentle fields, in lanes, and hills and sunnypastures—in those same things which gave to the Umbrian saints andpainters the spirit of peace. Spoleto had none of these. Spoleto ispurely Umbrian, as far as geography goes, she was at one time the headof Umbrian matters, but the town was always independent, a thing apart,or rather, perhaps, influenced by the influence of larger rules andkingdoms. Hers is a stirring history,[121] and the sense of her wars andof her dukes lives on within her stones, and is stamped upon her housesand her church walls. There was a smell of dukes and cardinals, ofpomposity and vastness, even in the rooms of our inn[122]; and the very{304}landscape round seemed throttled by the passing of imperial people. Itwas as though a great emperor had taken a peasant girl and dressed herup in gorgeous clothes and given her a splendid palace for a home. Thegirl (the gentle spirit of Umbria) withered, but the palace built forher remained, and the best thing about it—its grand supply of freshestwater from the hills above, brought down in great Roman aqueducts—hasnever been removed.

As we pondered these things we remembered the brown roofs and the squareof S. Lorenzo at Perugia, and we thought them better than all thegrandeur of imperial powers stuffed into a narrow creek of the Umbrianhills.

Yet Spoleto is a place which excites a strong and lasting fascination.Its situation is magnificent. The citadel of Theodoric soars above it: amighty block of masonry; at its feet the Duomo and the town, and at itsback the towering crags, covered here and there with a dense growth ofilex, box, and oak. Town and mountain are divided by a deep gorge, butthis is spanned by the Roman aqueduct, 266 feet in height, and the mostremarkable point of the whole town. To get a full impression of Spoletoone should cross the aqueduct and walk or ride to Monte Luco, a conventbuilt immediately above the city, in the midst of the ilex woods.Thence, on a broad bastion, outside the cell where S. Francis came topray, one’s eye wanders over a magnificent stretch of plain and hill andriver, backed by a land of barren mountain tops and gorges.

Very few treasures of art are left in the town itself,{305} and these are asbruised, as scattered, and unsatisfactory as those of any city whosehistory is one of fighting and perpetual sieges rather than of artistsor of fame. Lo Spagna lived at Spoleto, and worked there largely; butthe gentle style of his colouring, the peace and often affectation ofhis figures seems out of place on the altars of half barbaric or baroccochurches. Everywhere there are bits of Roman building picked up andstuck about on pavements and façades: a painful mixture, lacking careand order. Several of the churches have good Lombard fronts; the Chiesadel Crocifisso is built from the ruins of a Roman temple, but the placeis only a pain to see in its dilapidation.

The Duomo is a really impressive building, with a splendid Lombardfront—a broad balcony supported by columns, and eight rose windowsabove it. The roof of the choir is painted by Filippo Lippi.

Filippo Lippi died at Spoleto in 1489. He was poisoned, some say, thisFlorentine monk, because of his loves with an Umbrian lady. Lorenzo de’Medici tried to get his body back that they might bury it in Florence,but the Spoletans refused, pleading that they possessed so few objectsof interest of their own that they must needs keep the bones of thisgreat painter for an ornament. So Lorenzo caused his tomb to be built inthe cathedral of Spoleto. As we turned from the long Latin inscriptionwritten above it we felt that Browning’s lines would have served thepurpose just as well, and much more shortly:

Narni.

Leaving Trevi and its cataracts to the left we passed in the train toNarni. We came there for an hour, we stayed a whole day and a night,fascinated by the{306} marvellous view which met us from the windows of theinn.[123] Part of the city of Narni is built immediately upon the steepcrags which overhang the gorge of the Nar. From this side the positionof the city may be practically called inaccessible, and over it ourwindows looked. We had seen the Umbrian plains and valleys, we had seenSpoleto; Narni again was a fresh surprise, it seemed to represent to usthe Umbrian Alps. The place has a tempestuous history. There is acertain beaten look about its walls which reminded us of Perugia, and,indeed, the cities are alike in many ways. Both were practically in thepower of the Popes whilst considering themselves as independentrepublics, both fostering perpetual feuds between the neighbouringcities.[124] But whereas Perugia has kept an ample record of her past,that of Narni is almost obliterated. Through a piece of misguided policyshe laid herself open to a horrible siege in 1527 (see pamphlet byGiuseppe Terrenzi). The Bourbons entered the town, sacked the houses,butchered her inhabitants, destroyed her considerable treasures of art,and finally, made an end of nearly all her archives.

In Narni, however, we did not look for art. We came there almostunexpectedly, and unexpectedly we stayed, wandering through its streets,discovering with delight the rare and lovely bits of Lombard tracery onhouse and church door, and passing in and out between the Romangateways.[125] At night we sat in the quiet rooms{307}

NARNI (WITH ANGELO INN IN FOREGROUND)

{308}

{309}

of the Angelo inn, and listened to the nightingales which sang withtheir habitual vehemence deep in the ilex woods across the river Nar.They had sung, no doubt, in just this fashion hundreds of years ago,when the Bourbons broke into the town and half destroyed her people.

Orvieto.

In the dull light of coming rain we turned our backs on Narni and tookthe train for Orte. We left the sun at the same time as we left thegreen and wooded hills and valleys. The rain came down in sheets atOrte; and we found ourselves in the deadly land—the land of greyvolcanic strata, bare like a bone, in the valley of the Paglia. Drearyenough was the outlook when we came to Orvieto. The city seemed asthough it had been drenched in the ink of a wounded sepia; the streetswere black and foul, the houses low and closely packed; walls withouttowers, dwindled and decayed rather than bombarded, and people withfever-stricken faces huddled in the square.

Heavy drenching rain of spring. Under the darkness of the clouds,soaring high as a glorious vision above the miserable houses—a peacockin a hen-coop, a miracle of marbles and mosaics—the Duomo ofOrvieto!... No one who has ever seen the building can forget it, for itis like a great surprise; it startles and astounds one in the midst ofthe decay around it. Here, if anywhere in Umbria, the power of the Popeor of the Church was sealed on the rebellious souls of its inhabitants;here to commemorate a dubious miracle men made a dream in stone.[126] Todescribe its splendours{310} were in this small sketch a mere impertinence.But if we wish to see what is perhaps the finest bit of Gothic work inItaly, if we wish to learn the power of Signorelli’s painting, it iscertain that we must come hither and study at Orvieto.

As we turned our back on the cathedral we wondered what it was about herpeople which had allowed them to foster such a mighty piece of purestart throughout a turbulent history. Certainly the popes had power in thecity.[127] They made it a mighty church, they made for it an almostmightier well! When Clement VII. fled from Rome in 1527 he took refugein Orvieto, and, haunted by the fear of drought in case of siege,conceived the extraordinary idea of building a colossal well, for whichpurpose he employed the same architect as Paul III. employed to buildhis fortress at Perugia.

Signorelli painted a picture of the Inferno for Orvieto, Sangallo builtfor it an Inferno in bricks! Feathery mosses, sombre ferns have grownacross the inside walls of the greatpozzo (which was built on a scaleto suit a train of ascending and descending elephants); they seemed toseethe like sulphurous smoke in the dark and fetid air and we hurriedfrom it gladly into the rain of the street....

Chiusi.

From Orvieto we went to Chiusi. The rain went{311} with us too, and of thetown itself we saw but little, only all around us in the dense woods, inthe silent soaking air of night, the nightingales were singing theirpiercing penetrating songs of love and May. The air was full of thestrong sweet voices and of the scent of growing leaves, of privet, andwet earth. Chiusi is a centre of interest to students of Etruscanhistory, and although the little town exports its treasures to everymuseum in Europe its own is full of beauties still. We lingered longamong them, fascinated by the goblin birds which are perched upon thevases and the pent roof of the tombs, fascinated by the excellence andthe variety of the greater part of all the objects in the cases. Therain poured pitilessly upon the streets of Chiusi; it swept in sheetsacross the lake and over the towers of Montepulciano, and we abandonedall hopes of going to the tombs themselves and drove away across themarshes and up the wooded hills to Città della Pieve.[128]

Città della Pieve.

... “j’étais tout de même persuadé que Città della Pieve reste la villela plus merveilleuse de l’Ombrie,” says M. Broussole; and we ourselvesin many ways agreed with him. The charm of the town consists firstly, inits situation, and secondly, in its association. It commands wide viewsnorthwards over the lakes of Chiusi and of Trasimene, and southwardstowards Rome. The hill on which it stands is densely wooded, there isperpetual peace in its streets, it is the birth-place of PietroPerugino{312} and contains some faint fair bits of the master’s later work.All day we wandered through the town, and when the evening came we foundourselves at service in the church of Santa Maria dei Servi.

It was May, the month of Mary. The people from the town came pouring infor benediction. They were nearly all of them very poor people, the menhaggard with perpetual labour in the fields,[129] quiet and eager evenwhen very old; the girls fair, slim, colourless, their shawls too welldefining the slender slope of their thin shoulders; the children brownand fascinating, and the older women lost in prayer. (We have noticedthat the veriest hags in Umbria seem to pray as though they fullyrealised the sins of their forefathers, and felt the present generationneeded all their prayers.) Peace and poverty were the two things whichwere stamped most clearly on the faces of the congregation. The prieststhemselves looked poor and worn, shorn of their fat homes andprivileges. There were not many candles on the altar and these theylighted slowly one by one. Then they begun to sing a long low wailingchaunt in praise of Mary.

It had thundered and rained since morning. The day died out in an orangeglow which filtered through the hedges on the road outside and fellthrough the door of the church, gilding, as though with the softness ofa vision, the groups of tired people. It rested with a wonderfulradiance on the faded fresco above the chapel where we sat.[130]

{313}

In all the country round, it would have been difficult to find a scenemore steeped in the spirit of pastoral Umbria than this one: thehalf-ruined church, the graceful tired people, the thin priests, and thefaded fresco of Perugino; the whole saved from squalor by the splendourof the sunlight on the land outside the door.

We opened a book which we had carried with us on our journey and readthe following lines:

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

Chi lo sa.—The words brought up before our eyes a host of images:hedges and fields, woods and plains, green with the green of theMay-time: white roads and poppy fields, the oak woods under Trevi, theilex{314} groves of Spoleto, the long low lines of shining Trasimene, themarshy shores of Chiusi; and still more fair and more romantic, the coolgreen stream of the Clitumnus flowing beneath the pagan temple of aRoman river god.... That was the vision we had learned to love and know,with no attempt to criticise, and it was all composed of natural things.Dimly in the past we saw another vision: our study at Perugia. Piles andpiles of manuscripts were there; books and maps, and guides, pamphlets,chronicles and histories—the records of men’s doings, one and all.

What about all this history, these interminable records of building andof quarrelling, of burying and strife? What in fact about all thesePerugian P’s:—Persecuzione,Protezione,Processione; Popes,people, painters, andPriori? What had all these persons done to touchor trammel permanently the eternal smile of Umbrian nature through whichwe had been passing? Surely there were lovers who, amongst the savagebands of men who skirmished down the hill across the plains in order toinsult or to offend their neighbours, stopped to snatch a white rosefrom the hedges where they grew in thousands? And there were women,young and pure and peaceful, ignorant of the Pope, indifferent to theBaglioni, who waited for them in their homes—women with the faces ofBonfigli’s angels, Bonfigli’s roses, maybe, twisted in their hair?...

With dim delight we realised that whatever the doings of the past mayhave been in Umbria as elsewhere, the microscopic scratches made by himthrough centuries upon the calm smooth breast of Nature have now allturned to a delicate adornment. The war and the strife, the hurrying andskurrying to power have vanished utterly. Man’s work is there: wonderfullittle cities of men made one with Nature{315} now; frescoes fading intodeath around the quiet altars of forgotten churches, fortresses andwells and city walls, bridges and the tombs of vanished nations; newbuildings rising here and there upon the old, new people praying orparading, where the old had fought and prayed. But above them all thebalm of sun and rain, of rivers, lakes and water-courses doing theirwork.

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  

As the twilight fell we left the church. Early the following morning weturned our faces northward on Perugia, but took a last long look atPerugino’s altar-piece in the church of the Disciplinati. Faint golds,faint greens, a quiet landscape, with low hills falling peacefully on alow stretch of valley. No harsh shadows, no high lights, the shepherdscrossing down the paths behind their browsing sheep. The Virgin, a typeof purest girlhood with just enough of the woman in the way she holdsthe Child to show it is her own; young men, for kings, with angel faces,and the smile of saints; no touch of passion, no glimmer of pain ...that was the sense of the picture.

As we looked at it the people from the town came in to see it too, thebaker and the smith, the driver and the local painter. “You see,” saidthe smith, “it is a very beautiful thing this picture of ours; and whenwe hear it is uncovered we come to see it too. We particularly like thatwhite dog in the background, and the shepherds are exactly like thelife. We often come to look at it—how should we do otherwise?”

The smith was tall and slim and very gentle. His face was like that ofthe youthful king who holds the chalice in Pietro’s fresco, it merelylacked the affectation, and his perfectly simple comments seemed to usmore genuine and impressive than many books of critics. We listened tothem gladly, but as we turned our faces{316} homewards, we rememberedcertain other subtle and delightful phrases written by Alinda Brunamontiupon a work of Perugino. With these calm words we close a book whichopened with the clash of swords and the conflicts of the Umbrian people:

“Sorrow does not disturb serenity; pain is at enmity with joy but notwith peace. This Christian law is incarnated within our art. Peace andnot joy is in her idylls; peace in the landscapes which are so utterlyour own, and so serenely beautiful. How often—even whilst my visionwandered into the infinitude of sky behind our blue green hills, andfurther again beyond the outposts of the Apennines, and further stillaway into the depths of the azure-laden air—have I not said untomyself; ‘This vision surely is of an insuperable loveliness! Howtherefore could our artists fail to be above all thingsideal whenNature of herself had trained them in schools of such an exquisiteperfection?’ ”

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INDEX

A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,L,M,N,O,P,R,S,T,U,V,W,Z

A
Abbot, of S. Pietro (Guidalotti),38;
treacherously assassinates B. Michelotti,39;
flies from Perugia,40.
Adone Doni, picture by,119;181.
Agilulf, King of the Lombards, recaptures Perugia,15.
Albano, bishop of, (Cardinal Angelico), Urban VI.’s Vicar General in Perugia,30,184.
Albornoz, Cardinal, attempts to recover States of the Church,30.
Alexander VI., Pope, enmity with Baglioni, (note)55;263.
Alfani, Domenico and Orazio,234;264;265.
Alunno, Niccolò,235;251;295.
Angelico, Fra Beato,235;
his pictures at Perugia,256,257,258.
Aquila, siege of, by B. Fortebraccio,48;49;50;207;209.
Arezzo,18;
wars with Perugia,21,22,111,112;291.
Armanni, Cristiano, contributes towards building of S. Domenico,164.
Assisi, taken by Totila,13;18;
wars with Perugia,19;30;37;41;43;60;85;98;118;182;290;300.
Audience Chamber of Magistrates, Renaissance woodwork in,229.
Augustus, Emperor, takes Perugia,9;12;91;171.

B
Baccio d’Agnolo,190.
Baglioni,33;
murder of Pandolfo,37;
Spello given to Malatesta,51;
blood-feuds with the degli Oddi,55,112;
Matarazzo, historian of the,58;
described by J. A. Symonds,59,60;
beauty of the,61;
treachery of Grifonetto,62;
marriage of Lavinia Colonna with Astorre,63;
massacre of the,64,65;
flight of Atalanta, Zenobia and Gianpaolo,65;
death of Grifonetto,66,161,162;
Gianpaolo, despot of Perugia,67;
character of Gianpaolo,68;
death of Gianpaolo,69;
murder of Gentile and Galeotto,69;
death of Orazio,69;
betrayal of Florence by Malatesta,70;
descendants of the,70;
Ridolfo, fires the People’s Palace, assassinates Pope’s Legate, and is driven out of Perugia,71;
Perugians recal Ridolfo,74;
Ridolfo, makes peace with Paul III.,75;
destruction of palaces of,75;
dying words of Malatesta,76;
tomb of Bishop Giovanni Andrea,146;
Benedetto, helps in destruction of Paul III.’s fortress,151;
Chapel in S. Pietro of the,172; (note)255;
tomb of the Volumnii discovered on property of Count,282.
Barbiano, Alberigo di,41.
Baroccio, Federigo, fresco by, in Palazzo Pubblico,119;
picture in S. Lorenzo by,136;
his love of Perugia,137.
Bartoli, Taddeo,235;236.
Bartoli, historian, quoted,19,26;28.
Bastia, (note)70;71.
Battle of the Stones, description of,45.
Beccherini, nickname of the common folk in Perugia,27;105;186.
Bellisarius, General,13.
Bellucci, Prof., plain of Umbria described by,3;
private museum of,282.{318}
Benedict XI., Pope, tomb of,164,166,167;
visited by his mother,165;
death of,165.
Benozzo Gozzoli,235;
work at Montefalco,297;298.
Bernardino, S. of Siena,55;109;
representation of, in stained glass window in S. Lorenzo,138;
account of,206,207;
portrait of,207;
favourite bell of,210;
miracles of, painted by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo,255.
Berto di Giovanni,264.
Bettona, (note)34; (note)70;116;291.
Bevignate, Fra. plans Perugian Fountain, (note)125.
Boccati da Camerino, his pictures,251.
Bologna,41;42;68;221.
Bonazzi, Luigi, modern historian of Perugia, quoted,2;11;27;
describes lives of exiled nobles,34;37;80; (note)91;
describes growth of Perugia,92,93;
describes feasts of Perugia,130;146;149;152;
mentions miracles of Abbot of S. Pietro,168;
describes a day of “Political bacchanalia” in Perugia,180;
on the Flagellants,211.
Bonfigli, Benedetto, (note)96;105;115;
Pietà in S. Pietro by,171;
in S. Fiorenzo,182,232,
the Carmine, S. Maria Nuova,182,
Gonfalone by, in Pinacoteca, (note)213,
S. Francesco al Prato, (note)214;
probable master of Perugino,219;
Capella del, in Pinacoteca,237;
account of,238,239;
frescoes in Pinacoteca by, (note)161,240,241,242;
picture of Perugia by,246;
pictures in Pinacoteca by,246,247;248;251;252.
Boniface IX., Pope, fortifies monastery of S. Pietro,35,170;
arbitrator between Perugians and B. Michelotti,35;
jealous of B. Michelotti,37,39;
Perugians submit to,41; (note)73.
Bonomi, Messer, plans Perugian aqueduct,129.
Bower, Mr, (note)293.
Broussole, M.,171, quoted,311,313.
Browning, Robert, quoted,305.
Brufani, Hotel,152.
Brunamonte, Alinda, Perugian poetess, (note)210;266;
quoted,316.
Buffalmacco, Buonamico, practical joke on Perugians by,160,161.
Byron, Lord, quoted,302.

C
Caius Cestius (Macedonicus), sets fire to Perugia,10,91,194.
Caldora, General,49.
Calisciana,52.
Cambio, The, (note 2)190;
frescoes in,216;
Perugino’s portrait in,218;224;225;
description of frescoes in,226-229.
Camerino,38;235.
Campano, Gianantonio, his description of B. Fortebraccio,45;
his account of ‘Battle of Stones,’46.
Canonica, The, occasional residence of Popes,25;26;28;
description of,146;
vision of Gregory IX. in,149.
Cantù, Cesare, (note)20.
Caporale, Bartolomeo, pictures by,248.
Carpaccio, Vittore,251.
Casalina,40.
Cassinese, M.,173.
Castiglion del Lago, submits to Perugia,18.
Cathedral, The (see Church of S. Lorenzo),17;47;
washed with wine and reconsecrated,67;110;
used as a fortress,112;135;204.
Catherine, S., of Siena, portrait of,258.
Charles IV., Emperor,29;104.
Charles, of Anjou,125;144.
Charlemagne, Emperor,25.
Chiagio, river,3.
Chiusi, (note)85;
wedding-ring of the Virgin stolen from,139,218;276;291;
description of,310,311;314.
Church of S. Agostino,189;
choir of, designed by Perugino,190;
picture by scholar of Perugino in,193;216;224.{319}
Church of S. Angelo, account of,194;
early fresco in,196.
—— S. Bernardino, built in honour of S. Bernardino,206;
description of façade of,208;210;213;238;239.
—— of the Carmine,182; (note)238.
—— of S. Costanzo,49;168;176;
rebuilt by Leo XIII.,177;
byzantine doorway of,177.
—— S. Domenico, tower of,91;97;163;
account of,164;
tomb of Benedict IX. by G. Pisano in,164-167;
work of A. Ducci in,167;
Gothic window in,167;208;
represented in Bonfigli’s fresco,240.
—— S. Ercolano,95;125;154;
account of,156;
Grifonetto Baglioni killed close by,161;162.
—— S. Francesco al Prato,50;97; (note)208;
legend of bell of,210;213;
Gonfalone in Sacristy of,214;238.
—— S. Fiorenzo,120;182;212;
Gonfalone in,232;238; (note 2)263.
—— S. Lorenzo (Cathedral of Perugia),39;44; former church of,93;96;
built partly by Lombard workmen,97;123;133;
foundation stone laid of,135;
description of,135;
Chapel of S. Bernardino with F. Baroccio’s picture in,136;
window by A. Fiammingo in,137;
choir and stalls in,138;
Chapel of the Virgin’s ring,138,139;
‘Miraculous’ picture in,141;
Chapel of baptistery in,142;
picture by L. Signorelli in,142;
picture by Perugino in,143;
urn with ashes of three Popes in,143;
fragments of tomb by G. Pisano in,145;
tomb of Bishop Giov. Andrea Baglioni in,146;216;238;
body of S. Ercolano carried to,246.
—— Madonna della Luce, altar-piece in,204;
legend of,206.
—— Maestà delle Volte, (note)115.
—— S. Maria Nuova,gonfalone in,182;238.
—— S. Maria del Popolo,138.
—— S. Maria dei Servi,97.
Church, S. Martino,214;
altar-piece by Giannicola Manni in,215; (note)228.
—— the Chiesa Nuova,201.
—— S. Pietro,44;
tower of,91,170;
becomes a ‘Nation-Monument,’ (note)163;167;
Abbot Pietro Vincioli builds,168,169;
first Cathedral of Perugia,168;
Pietà by Perugino in, by Bonfigli in,171;
pictures by Eusebio di S. Giorgio, Guido Reni and Vasari in,171;
pictures by two Alfani, Salimbene and Sassoferrato in,172;
sacristy in,172;
Mino da Fiesole’s altar-piece in,172;
description and account of choir, in,173,174;
fresco attributed to Giannicola Manni in,174;
anecdote connected with,175;216;233;
represented in Bonfigli’s fresco,241,242.
—— S. Severo, built by Camaldolese monks,182;
fresco by Perugino and Raphael in,182,183;263.
Ciatti, Chronicler, his legend of Noah,6;
of origin of Griffin in Arms of Perugia,7;13;
describes Perugians,95;
his legend of the Virgin’s wedding ring,140,141;
his legend of Innocent III.’s ascent into heaven,143;
quoted,176,177;242;
his legend of S. Ercolano,245.
Città di Castello,18;30;291.
Città della Pieve, rebellion of,19,20;85;218;291;
birth-place of Perugino,311;
description of,311, (note 1)312; (note)313.
Ciunillo, poet of Aquila, (note)49.
Clement IV., Pope,23.
Clement VII., Pope,70;310.
Clement X., Pope,76.
Clitumnus, river,300;302.
Clitumnus, The, temple, description of,300;302.
Colomba, Blessed,55.
Colonna, Cardinal,27.
Comitoli, Bishop, rebuilds part of S. Domenico,164;156.
Conclave, The, Perugians claim invention of,26.
Conestabile, Count, on Etruscan Antiquities,99;194; (note)268;273.{320}
Confraternità di S. Andrea, its protection of criminals,212,213.
Constantine, General,13.
Convent of S. Giuliana,100.
—— of Monte Luce,46;106;
Paul III.’s visit to nuns of,107;108.
—— of Monte Luco,8;304.
Coppoli, Giacomo di Buonconti de’, gives houses on Monteripido to Franciscans,198.
Costanzo, S.,24; patron of Perugia, (note)117;126;168;
legend of,176;
martyrdom of,177.
Corso Cavour, historical interest of,162;163.
—— Vannucci,99;
gaiety of,103;105;106;114;116;152;201;202;229;246.
Cortona,218;291.
Creighton, Dr, Bishop of London, quoted,211.
Crowe andCavacaselle,236;266.
Cyprian, assassinated by Totila’s orders,13.

D
Damiano, Fra, of Bergamo, makes intarsia door in choir of S. Pietro,174.
Dandolo, Matteo, Doge of Venice,70.
Dante Alighieri, quoted,22,144,183.
Danti, Vincenzio, makes statue of Julius III.,181.
Dennis, G., his description of Arch of Augustus,187,188;273;277;
quoted,278,279,283,286.
Deruta, (note)34;36;85;
pottery works at, probably founded by A. Ducci, (note)208.
Dominic, S. (Domenico), canonized at Perugia,28;164;
meets S. Francis at Perugia,197.
Donati, Signor, catalogue of Etruscan Museum by,273.
Donato, Corso, visits Benedict XI. at Perugia,165.
Ducci, Agostino (della Robbia), (note)145;
work at S. Domenico,167;
façade of S. Bernardino by,208.

E
Egidio, Fra Beato, death of,198;
visited by S. Louis, K. of France,199;
tomb of,214,237.
Elizabeth, S., Q. of Hungary, canonized at Perugia,28;259.
Ercolano, S., bishop of Perugia,13;24;
(note)117;126;154;
translation of body of,156;
double procession of,159;
proverb about,159;
Buffalmacco’s practical joke on picture of,160;242;
legend of,245;246.
Etruscans, The,4;94;
monkish legends of,6;
Perugia one of their chief cities,8;
victory of Fabius over,9; merged in the Romans,11;
walls of,86,88,188;
account of,268,271,272;
their influence on the Romans,275;
their custom of visiting tombs at night,285;
their use of the Medusa, (note 3)286.
Eusebio di S. Giorgio, picture in S. Pietro by,171;234;
(note)259;262;
account of, (note 1)263.

F
Fabius Maximus, defeats the Etruscans,9.
Fabretti, chronicles of,43;97;113;120;123.
Fanti, General Manfredi, takes Perugia in 1860,80.
Farnese (Pope Paul III.),73.
Farnese, Pier-Luigi,73.
Fergusson, J., describes S. Angelo,194.
Feronia, Goddess,106.
Fiammingo, Arrigo, window in S. Lorenzo by,137.
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, fresco in Palazzo Pubblico by,119;251;
account of,252,255;262.
Flagellants, The, songs of,159;
religious movement of,211;
legend of,212.
Flaminian way, site of,299.
Florence, accepts Perugia’s help,22;29;30;47;
Malatesta Baglioni betrays,70;160;231;257.{321}
Foligno,18;
skirmishes with Perugia,20;85;235;291;
description of,295,296;297;299;300.
Fontignano, Perugino dies at,223;
burial at, (note)224.
Fortebraccio, Braccio,31;40;
joins Italian company of S. George,41;
rivalry with Attendolo Sforza,42;
ambition of,42;
attempts to take Perugia,43;
battle of Sant’ Egideo,43;
despot of Perugia,44;
personality of,45;
Martin V.’s jealousy of,47;
siege of Aquila by,48;
death of,49;
hints of Sforza’s treachery in Ciunillo’s poem towards, (note)49;
consternation in Perugia at death of,50;
Niccolò Piccinino follower of,51; (note)73; (note)100;
Porta S. Angelo built by,197;214; (note)236;
loggia of, in Bonfigli’s fresco,246.
——, Niccolò, brings B. Fortebraccio’s bones to Perugia,49.
Fortress, The, of Paul III., foundation of,75;79;80;99;
history of,151,152;
description of, by A. Trollope,152,153;154.
Fountain, The,109;111;
description of,125,126;
laws for preservation of,130.
Francis, S., of Assisi, imprisoned in Perugia,19;
canonized in Perugia,28;98;
appears to Gregory IX.,149;
Honorius III. visits,197;
meets S. Dominic in Perugia,197;199;206;233;304.
Frederic, Emperor, Barbarossa, (note)292.
Frederic II., Emperor,20.
Freeman, Professor, quoted,109.
Frollieri, Girolamo, (note)8;
account of Gianpaolo’s character,67,68;76.

G
Gallery, National, The English, picture by Paolo Uccello in, (note)44;267.
Gates of Perugia, Etruscan,88;99.
Gentile da Fabriano,235.
Giacomo, Messer, di Servadio, one of the architects of Palazzo Pubblico,116.
Giotto,235.
Giovanello di Benvenuto, plans Palazzo Pubblico,116.
Goldoni, Carlo, describes the Virgin’s ring, (note)140;
as a child acts in Palazzo Gallenga, (note)187.
Gonfaloni, The, by Bonfigli, in S. Maria Nuova,182,238;
in S. Fiorenzo,182,232;
in Pinacoteca, (note)213,238;
in S. Francesco al Prato,214,238;
in S. Lorenzo,238;
in the Carmine, (note)238;
account of,231.
Graziani, chronicler,50.
Greece, influence on Etruscan art of,271.
Gregorovius, Ferdinand, quoted,21; (note)146.
Gregory IX., Pope, visits Perugia,27;
canonizes S. Francis of Assisi, S. Domenic and S. Elizabeth of Hungary,28;
his vision of S. Francis,149.
Gregory XI., Pope, excommunicates Perugians,31;212.
Griffin, origin of, on Perugia’s arms,7,8.
Guadabassi, Count, Etruscan collection of,279.
Gualdo,22;183;235.
Gubbio,18;38; (note)85; (note 2)93;235;265;291;
description of,292.
Gucci,see Ducci.
Guidalotti, Abbot, of S. Pietro, his plot against B. Michelotti,38,39;
his flight from Perugia,40;
he destroyscampanile of S. Pietro,170.

H
Hawkwood, Sir John, (note)35;119;120;
called in by Abbot of Mommaggiore,185;186.
Honorius III., pope, election of,26;
attempts to enforce Papal authority in Perugia,27;197.{322}

I
Innocent III., Pope,25;
firstpadrone of Perugia,26;29;51;
legend of his ascent into heaven,143;144;145;146.
Innocent VIII., Pope,113.

J
Jameson, Mrs,207.
Janus,6.
Jesuits, The, chief power in Perugia falls to,76.
John XXI., Pope,24.
John XXIII., Pope,42.
Julius II., Pope, visits Gianpaolo Baglioni,68;69.
Julius III., Pope,79;
statue of,178;
policy towards Perugians of,180;181;183.
Juno, image of,10.

L
Ladislaus, King, of Naples, connection with Perugia,42.
Lasche,21;24;95;160.
Lefèvre, M. André, quoted,268; (note)272;273.
Leo, Emperor, decree against image worship,15.
Leo X., Pope, plots against Gianpaolo Baglioni,69.
Lippi, Fra Filippo,163;235;240;
dies at Spoleto,305.
Lombards, The, occupation of Perugia by,14;
employed in building Palazzo Pubblico at Perugia,97.
Louis, IX., S., King of France, visits Fra Egidio at Perugia, (note)117;199;200.
Louis, S., Bishop of Toulouse, door of Palazzo Pubblico at Perugia dedicated to,116;
patron saint of Perugia and of Palazzodei Priori, (note)117;126;200;
fresco of, by Bonfigli,240,241,242.
Lupatelli, A., guide-book of Perugian art,98; (note)230.

M
Machiavelli, N., comments on action of the Baglioni,69.
Malatesta, Carlo, fighting for the Perugians, is taken prisoner by Braccio Fortebraccio,43.
Malatesta, Galeazzo,43; (note)44.
Manni, Giannicola,142;174;
picture in S. Martino by,215;
paints chapel in the Cambio,228; (note)263;
pictures in Pinacoteca by,264.
Mantegna, Andrea, picture at Foligno,296.
Marengo, battle of,79.
Margaritone d’Arezzo,237.
Mariotti, Annibale,21; (note)84;86; (note 1)93;
topography of Perugia,99;107;118; (note)126;144;
describes visit of Benedict XI.’s mother to Perugia,165;
quoted,180;190;
Honorius III. and S. Francis of Assisi,197;208;
notes on Perugino,224;229;236;
character of Bonfigli’s wife,238;239;
deplores bad condition of Bonfigli’s pictures,240;262;
quoted,265.
Mariotto, Bernardino di, pictures by,248.
Martin IV., Pope, excommunicates Perugians,21;143;
dies of surfeit of eels in Perugia,144;
tomb destroyed of,145.
Martin V., Pope, sends for Fortebraccio to Florence,47,48;
his wars with Fortebraccio, refuses him Christian burial,49;
enters Perugia as Lord,51; (note)73.
Massa, birth-place of S. Bernardino,206.
Matarazzo, Francesco, describes miserable condition of Perugia,56;
scholar of Perugia,58;
chronicles of,59;
his description of Astorre Baglioni (translated by J. A. Symonds),60;
his admiration of the Baglioni,61;63;64; (notes 3 and 4),65;
describes Grifonetto Baglioni’s death (translated by J. A. S.),66,67;225; (note)255.
Matteo da Siena,235.
Maturanzio,see Matarazzo.
Mauritius, Duke, treachery of,15.{323}
Melanzio, Francesco, work at Montefalco, (note)297;298;299.
Michelotti, B.,31;35;37;38;51;
account of,36;
murder of,39.
Mommaggiore, Abbot,135;145;
his despotism,30,184,187.

N
Napoleon, Emperor (Bonaparte),104;118;167;216; (note 2)222;
occupies Perugia,79;
robs Perugia of her masterpieces, (note)91.
Narni,8;293;306;
description of,305.
Nar, river,308;311.
Nelli, Ottaviano,267;298;
Masterpiece at Gubbio,295.
Neri di Bicci,163.
Nicholas IV., Pope, (note)309.
Noah, legend of,6.
Nocera,22;183.

O
Octavius Cæsar, (Augustus), besieges Perugia,10.
Oddi, the degli,31;33; (note)34;54;55;59;255;
expelled from Perugia by the Baglioni,56.
Oratory of S. Bernardino,see Church.
Orsini, Bertolda, marries B. Michelotti,38.
Orsini, Signor, guide-book of Perugia by,98;247.
Orvieto, (note)85;224;291;
description of,309,310.
Otto I., Emperor, confirms donation of Perugia to the Papacy,25.
Otto III., Emperor,168.
Oxford, (note)100;104.

P
Palace of Justice,22.
Palazzo Baldeschi,23, (note)235.
—— Baglioni, Palace of Grifonetto,61.
—— Bracceschi,163; (note)235.
—— (or Palace of) Capitano del Popolo,19; (note)100.
—— Gallenga, (note)187.
—— Guidalotti,39.
Palazzo Oddi, degli, (note)34;201.
—— Pubblico (also calleddei Priori anddel Podestà),17;44;67;72;97;98;109;111; (note)229; (note)268;
bell-tower of, (note 1)93;
description of,113,114;
first architects employed on,116;
outer staircase and principal door of,117,118;
Sala del Malconsiglio in,119;
prisons of,120;
barbarous butchery in,123;
prisoners liberated “pro amore Dei” from,124;
Pinacoteca in, (note)230;
representation of, in Bonfigli’s fresco,246.
Paul III., Pope,71;72;75;79; (note)91;110;178;179;180; (note)222;310;
builds theRocca Paolina (or fortress) on the site of the Baglioni houses,70,75;
excommunicates the Perugians,73;
conquers Perugia,75,76;
fortress destroyed of,80;
visits convent of Monte Luce,107;
description of fortress of,151,152;
A. Trollope’s account of,152,153,154;
destroys top of campanile of S. Domenico,164.
Pepin, King of France, cedes Perugia to the Holy See,25.
Perugia,2;8;23;24;
Prof. Bellucci on,3;
a city of the Etruscan league,4;
legendary history of,6;
origin of griffin in city arms,7;
conquered by Octavius,9;
Caius Cestius sets fire to, Octavius rebuilds,10;
taken by Belisarius,12;
ruled alternately by Lombards and Goths,14,15;
saved by intercession of S. Zacharius,16;
early history of,17;
dominion extended over Umbria,18;
contests with Assisi, Città della Pieve and Foligno,19,20;
victory of Arezzo over,21;
defeats Siena,22;
given to Holy See by Pepin, by Charlemagne and by Otto I.,25;
Innocent III. dies and Honorius III. is elected in,26;
internecine broils,27;
Gregory IX. canonizes S. Francis, S. Dominic and S. Elizabeth in,28;
becomes one of theTre Communi,29;
rebels against Papal authority,30;
acknowledges dominion of Urban VI.,31;32;{324}
struggle between nobles and people,33; (note)34;
Michelotti enters,36;37;
Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, Lord of,44;
Braccio Fortebraccio captures,42;
is acclaimed Lord of,41;
‘Battle of the Stones’ in,45;47;48;
Braccio Fortebraccio’s bones brought to,49,50;
Martin V. enters,51;52; (note)55;56;
Matarazzo born in,58;59;60;61;62;
reception of Lavinia Orsini in,63;64;
mournful aspect of,67;68;69;
Malatesta Baglioni dies in,70;
Paul III. enters,71,72;
lays interdicts on,73;75;
Jesuits ruin,76;
annexed to French Empire,79;80;81;82;83;
topographical position of,84;
view from,85;
unstable soil of,86;
Etruscan walls of,88;91;
towers of,93;
doorways in,95;96;97;
guide-books to,98;
gates of,99;100;103;
University of,104;105;
walks round,106;109;112;113;116;119;
lumieri at,123;
prisons in,124;126;
fountain in,129,130,135;
Chapel of S. Bernardino in,136;
Baroccio paints in,137;138;
wedding-ring of Virgin Mary, in S. Lorenzo in,139,140,141;142;
death of Martin IV. in,144;
Canonica in,146;149;
fortress of Paul III. at,151,152,153,154;
S. Ercolano, Saint of,156,159;161;162; (note)163;164;
Benedict XI. dies at,165,166;167;168;171;175;
miracles of S. Costanzo in,176,177;181;
Church of Camaldolese monks in,182;
Dante on,183;
Abbot Mommaggiore builds fortresses in,184;
is driven out of,186;
Arch of Augustus in (described by Dennis),187;189;190;193;
meeting of S. Francis and S. Dominic in,197;199; (note)201;
Ducci’s work at,208,210;
rise of Flagellants in,211,212;214;
S. Martino in,215;
Perugino’s work at,216,217;218;
Perugino comes to,219;
Manni’s work at,228;
picture gallery in,230;
gonfaloni (banners) in,231,232;
pictures in gallery of,233,234,235,236,237;
Bonfigli’s work in,238,240,241,242,245,251; (note)255;
Fra Angelico visits,257;260;
Perugino’s pictures in gallery at,259,264;
Pinturicchio’s pictures in gallery at,260,261;
Lo Spagna’s picture in gallery at,262;
Raphael’s pictures in,265;
Academy of, founded,265;266;
Museum of,261,281;
tomb of the Volumnii near,282;290;291;
road to Gubbio from,292;294;295;300;304;306;315.
Perugino, Pietro, (Vannucci)60;85; (note 2)96;115;
Sposalizio by,138,190,193;142;
picture in S. Lorenzo by, (note)143;
Pietà in S. Pietro by,171;
“Assumption” by,172;173;
fresco in S. Severo by,182,183;
designs choir of S. Agostino,190;198;
house of,202,203,204;214;216;
Vasari’s accusations against,217;
his portrait in the Cambio,218;
his influence on Raphael,218;
birth of,219;
Bonfigli probably first master of,219;
goes to Florence,220;
pupil of Verrocchio,220;
meets Leonardo da Vinci,220;
paints in Sistine Chapel,221;
returns to Perugia,222;
lawsuit with Michelangelo,223;
his death,223, (note)224;
paints in the Cambio,225-228;229;239;252;256;258;
his work in the Pinacoteca,259,260,261;262; (note)263;
“Nativity” by,264;296;
his birth-place,311;
picture at Città della Pieve by, (note 2)312;313;315;316.
Piazza degli Aratri, fight in,113.
—— d’Armi, cattle fair held in the,100;152.
—— Emanuele,152.
—— di S. Ercolano,160.
—— Danti, (note)178.
—— della Giustizia,206;
origin of name,213;214.
—— Grimani,187;189.
—— di S. Lorenzo,99;
historical interest of,109,110;
Fountain in,125.
—— Morlacchi,146.
—— di Paglia,178.
—— del Pallone,152.{325}
Piazza del Papa,178;181.
—— Sopramuro,100;152.
Piccinino, Niccolò,31;
follower of B. Fortebraccio,51;
account of,52;281.
Pietro, S., Vincioli,168;
miracles of,169;
builds Church of S. Pietro,169.
Pinacoteca, The, (Palazzo Pubblico), (note)115; (note)137; (note)229; (note)230;
description of pictures in,230-266.
Pinturicchio (B. di Betto),248;
account of,260,261;265;
fresco at Spello by,294.
Pisano, Giovanni,125;126;145;
designs S. Domenico,164;
tomb of Benedict XI. by,166.
—— Niccola,98;103;125;126.
Pius IX., Pope,79.
Plenario, Frate, plans the aqueduct of Perugia,129.
Polvese, island of, submits to Perugia,18.
Porta, Augusta, or Arch of Augustus,88;
description of, by G. Dennis,187;188;189;214.
—— Eburnea, Baglioni houses near,63;88;113.
—— Mandola,88.
—— Marzia,88;
one of the old Etruscan gates, used by San Gallo as a decoration to the fortress,154,155.
—— Romana,167.
—— Sole,135;182;183;
incident connected with,184;186;187.
—— S., Agata, (note)14.
—— S., Angelo,99;106;185;196;197.
—— S., Antonio,106;184;186.
—— San Carlo, Baglioni houses near,63.
—— S., Ercolano,106;161.
—— S., Pietro,99;135;161;177; (note 1)208.
—— Susanna,88;99;106;201;241.
—— Veneris, Roman gate at Spello, (note)297.
Prefettura, The,80;152.

R
Raniere, Fra, vision of,211,212.
Raphael, (Sanzio), Immortalizes Astorre Baglioni in two pictures,60;138;
paints “Entombment” for Atalanta Baglioni,161;173;
fresco in S. Severo,182,183,214;231;234;235,248;
pictures ascribed to,262,263;264;300.
Raspanti, nickname of rich burghers in Perugia,27;35;
rally round B. Michelotti,36;
assassinate Pandolfo and Pellini Baglioni,37;41;42;184;186.
Ratchis, King, besieges Perugia,15,16.
Ravenna, Exarch of,15.
Reni, Guido, picture in S. Pietro by,171.
Ring, The Wedding, of the Virgin, legend about,139,140;141;204.
Robert, King, of Naples, (note)117.
Robbia, della,176.
Rio, A. F.,231.
Rome,8;9;10;11;12;13;17;
submits to B. Fortebraccio,44.
Roscetti, Cesarino, designs façade of Madonna della Luce,204.
Rossi, Adamo,118; (note)229.
——Scotti, Count, guide-book of Perugia by,98.
Rumohr, Ch. von, (note)227.

S
Salimbene, Ventura,172.
Sant’ Egideo, battle of,43; (note)44.
Santi, Giovanni, quoted,220.
Sassoferrato,172.
Schmid, Colonel, enters Perugia,80.
Sextus IV., Pope, (note)93.
Sforza, Attendolo, rival of B. Fortebraccio,42; (note)49.
Sforza, Francesco, (note)42; (note)49;
rival of N. Piccinino,51;52.
Siena,18;29;186;207;236.
Sienese, defeated by Perugians,22.
Siepi, guide-book of Perugia,182;204;208; (note)215.
Sinibaldo Ibi,234.
Sismondi, S. L. de,42;43.
Spagna, Lo,234;265;267; (note)300;305.
Spello,51;71;85;94;265;291;
description of,294;300.
Spoleto,16;18;79;85;177;262;265;291;299;
description of,302-305.{326}
Stefano da Bergamo, choir in S. Pietro by,173.
Stillman, Mr, (note)229.
Symonds, J. A.,33;
history of Baglioni by,59-70.

T
Taddeo Bartoli,235;236.
Taine, H., quoted,82;230;257,290.
Temple, of Clitumnus, description of,300,201;
Byron’s stanzas on,302.
Terni,291.
Theoderic, Emperor, citadel at Spoleto of,304.
Thomas, S. Aquinas,104;144.
Tiber, river,3;25;28;43;169;292;295.
Tiberio d’Assisi,176;234.
Titian,137;231.
Todi,18;85.
Tommaso d’Arcangelo, (note)236.
Torgiano,3; (note)70;291.
Torre di S. Manno, site of Etruscan tomb,213.
—— degli Scirri, (note 1)93;
last of Perugia’s towers,204.
Torrita, battle of,22.
Totila, besieges Perugia,12;
takes Perugia,13;159;
Bonfigli’s fresco of siege by,242.
Towers of Perugia, marked feature in olden days,93.
Trasimene, lake, hatchet heads of jade found near,3;18; (note)21;24.
Trevi,85;291;
description of,299,300;313.
Trollope, Adolphus, description of Paul III.’s fortress by,152,153.

U
Ubaldo, S.,159;
patron of Gubbio,292.
University, of Perugia, supposed origin of the, (note)12;103;
account of the,104;
Etruscan museum in the, (note)267; (note)230; (note)268.
Urban IV., Pope,143;144;184.
Urban V., Pope,30.
Urban VI., Pope, legend of white dove,31.
Urban VIII., Pope,104.
Urbino,38;235.

V
Varano, Nicolina da, wife of B. Fortebraccio,48.
Vasari, Giorgio,125;
quoted,160;
pictures in S. Pietro by,171;172;203;
accusations against Perugino by,217;223;
quoted,219;224;
Vasari on L’Ingegno, (note)227;236;259;261;262.
Velasquez, pictures ascribed to at Perugia, (note)235.
Venice,231.
Vermiglioli, Giov. Battista, writes on Etruscan antiquities,99; (note)126;273; (note)284.
Verrocchio, Andrea,220.
Via Bartolo, staircase in,89;
—— Bontempi,182.
—— della Cuparella,106.
—— del Commercio,202.
—— della Conca,214.
—— della Gabbia,120;123; (note)124.
—— Longara,193.
—— della Pera,269.
—— Piscinello,201.
—— dei Priori, (note)14; (note)34;201;204;229.
—— di San Francesco,214.
—— delle Stalle,39.
—— Vecchia, (note)92;215.
—— del Verzaro, (note)115.
Villani, G., quoted112;
describes death of Benedict XI.,165.
Visconti, Gian Galeazzo,37;
lord of Perugia,41.
Viterbo,30.
Volumnii, Tomb of the, description of,282-289.
Vulcan, Temple of,10.

W
Witigis, King,13.

Z
Zaccharias, Pope, S.,15;
saves Perugia,16.
Zuccheri, The,137.

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