Pintoricchio Part 5

"Music" is in some respects the most beautiful group of all, though the princ.i.p.al figure can hardly compare with that of "Arithmetic." This again is strongly reminiscent of Perugino. With drooped eyelids the symbolic sister daintily plays a violin; of four beautiful _putti_, two hold back the splendid dark green curtain, and two play the flute at "Music's" feet. Two old men are grouped together with Tubal Cain, who, as in the Spanish Chapel, forges musical instruments and keeps time with his swinging hammer. On the left is a charming group of boys--one playing the harp, another singing, a third, in rich dark robe and a student's cap upon his square out-flowing locks, touches a lute. In the spontaneity and unity that runs through all these figures, the suggestion of music and the sense of pleasure in it is rendered as in few other paintings of the Renaissance. We almost hear the strain, soft, fresh, heart-stirring, given without exaggeration or self-consciousness, to which the little _putti_ above seem to lean and listen, and we feel little doubt that this, the most lovingly painted, the most h.o.m.ogeneous of all the scenes, was painted entirely, or almost entirely, by Pintoricchio himself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Anderson photo_] [_Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome_

FIGURE REPRESENTING ARITHMETIC]

"Astrology" is the most damaged of any. The princ.i.p.al figure, which has been badly restored, must at any time have been entirely unworthy of the Umbrian master. The four _putti_, holding wands tipped with heavenly bodies, are much heavier and less dainty than his children. The groups at the sides, in one of which is a figure intended for Ptolemy, have no connection with the presiding patroness. That on the left, which is far the best, has, however, some admirable figures, Umbrian in character, and due to a pupil of Pintoricchio, who was thoroughly imbued with his master's spirit, and probably working straight from his sketches--indeed, a careful comparison of the hair and drapery of the youth who stands foremost, with extended arm, and holds an astral globe in the other hand, and the kneeling saint in the "a.s.sumption," of the Hall of Mysteries, may persuade us that Pintoricchio is himself responsible for this delightful figure.

The figures of "Grammar" and "Dialectics" in the following scenes are so much retouched that we can hardly tell what they were like originally, but we may feel almost certain that no part of them is by Pintoricchio.

The architecture of the thrones differs too. We surmise that this room, the last of the series actually occupied by the Pope, was finished hurriedly, and that this accounts for the very marked falling off in the quality of the work of the last three scenes. The arch and the five octagons here are entirely repainted; they refer to the virtue of "Justice," who holds the sword and balance. The others are sacred or legendary scenes. The period of their wholesale restoration can be judged by a dragon at the side of the central octagon, which we take to be the crest of Buoncompagni, and therefore of the time of Gregory XIII.

The most beautiful decorative figures in the entire range of rooms are the three full-length angels who support the Borgia scutcheon surmounted by the keys and tiara, set in a stucco frame between "Rhetoric" and "Geometry." In freedom of gesture, grace of flying drapery, and excellence of drawing, they must be ascribed to Pintoricchio himself, and may be compared with those he has executed in the Buffalini Chapel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Anderson photo_] [_Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome_

FIGURE REPRESENTING MUSIC]

The two following halls, which were those by which persons who had had audience of the Pope withdrew, are alike in architecture, and quite different from the rest. Large, and much more simply decorated, with high raised window seats; the first has a ceiling painted with patterns and grotesques (which here become much more decided in style), and has a frieze of twelve half-length figures of apostles and prophets arranged in pairs, the apostles holding scrolls bearing a sentence of the Creed, the prophets' scrolls inscribed with prophetic sayings. According to a mediaeval legend, each apostle, before proceeding to evangelise the world, composed a sentence of the Creed, and to each here is a.s.signed his traditionary verse.

The painter has used a late book of the sibyls, those interesting, legendary figures to whose traditionary sayings so much importance was attached by the early Church, and who were revived in the art of the Renaissance, with other cla.s.sic myths. Twelve are given, and all the prophecies, composed by the early Church, refer to the birth of the Redeemer. The ribbon upon which the oracle is inscribed was traditionary with the painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and Pintoricchio, like most of the Umbrian painters, was particularly attached to this decorative accessory. He uses it freely in the Belvedere, in Santa Maria del Popolo, and at Spello.

The figures in these two rooms are much restored, and the whole style is inferior and has an antiquated and archaic effect, which has been commented upon by every writer from the time of Taja. At the same time, there are certain of the sibyls, that of Delphi, and she of Europa, where we recognise Pintoricchio's special supervision in the head-dresses, the gestures, and the peculiar tricks of drapery.

Crowe and Cavalcaselle have attributed some of this work to Peruzzi, who, however, was only a boy of thirteen at this time, but Vasari speaks of "a Volterrean named Pietro d'Andrea, who spent most of his time in Rome, where he was working at some things in the palace of Alexander Borgia." Messer Pietro d'Andrea of Volterra was the master of Peruzzi, and there is sufficient likeness to Peruzzi's style to give strong a.s.surance that we have here the hand of his teacher. Schmarsow sees in part the hand of a Sienese, but whoever may have been concerned in the execution, the whole must have been sketched out by Pintoricchio, and is in harmony with the rest of the suite. In the window recesses of the "Hall of the Creed," the decorations show no falling off in originality.

Dolphins, masks, satyrs, flying loves, candelabra, and garlands are used with astonishing resource and variety. On the ceiling of the "Hall of Sibyls" are emblematical groups of the planets, with G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses driving triumphal cars, which remind us of Perugino's rendering some years later on the ceiling of the Cambio.

Nowhere can Pintoricchio's special merits and failings be better studied than in this long and brilliant range of rooms. In detail it is easy to discern the many shortcomings. He has little feeling for line; he has never made a study of planes and ma.s.ses; his personages stand about at haphazard, and often fail to belong to each other or to the events going on near them. There is hardly a subservient figure in any one of the scenes which would be missed if it were blotted out, or which is essential to the balance of line or colour. The distant objects are often as full in tone as the foreground; nowhere does the spirit of the composition rise into the sublime. On the other hand, the painter never forgets the purpose that has brought him here. With a self-restraint and a feeling for effect which are unerring, he hits upon the exact size, and keeps his compositions strictly within the picture and at the right distance from the eye. Raphael's splendid creations in the stanze suffer because of their vastness of conception and execution compared to the narrow and inadequate s.p.a.ce from which we view them. We go back from them as far as we are able, feeling as if their position must be but a temporary one. We long to see them in a freer air. Their s.p.a.ce seems to annihilate us, their thought is overwhelming and insistent.

Pintoricchio's frescoes are a rich yet un.o.btrusive setting, they do not compel your attention, but only give the impression of a refined splendour of surrounding and a marvellous insight into beautiful harmony of colour. The effect of the light has been so nicely calculated that even when freshly executed, the walls would not have been over-brilliant for the brilliant scenes to which they formed a background. On the charm of single groups and figures I have already enlarged, but one other feature strikes us forcibly--_i.e._ the power possessed by the master to employ so many a.s.sistant hands of varying schools and to so parcel out the work, keep the individuality of each so subservient and so impress his own style and purpose, that from end to end, although we can distinguish the various hands at work, it is only faintly and doubtfully, never so as to jar upon our sense of unity. We receive no shock as we pa.s.s from room to room, the direction of one mind runs through the whole, everywhere we are aware of the vigilant and sensitive grasp of the master's hand upon his tools, and allowing for all the shortcomings of detail, we cannot but feel that we have here an enviable monument for a painter to leave behind him.

Alexander Borgia had no time to enjoy his freshly completed apartments.

Pintoricchio must have been lingering over the last touches when, in the autumn of 1494, rumours of trouble from foreign foes reached Rome.

In September 1494 Charles VIII. of France invaded Italy. The Colonna and the Savelli, whom he had taken into his pay, were threatening the Eternal City from Frascati. Their intention was to take it by a.s.sault, make the Pope a prisoner, and seize Djem, the Mahometan prince. The Pope was filled with terror as Ostia surrendered to the allies of France, and a portion of Charles's fleet appeared at the mouth of the Tiber. Charles himself was advancing through Tuscany, accompanied by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and a proposal was discussed to deprive the Pope, whose crimes had become notorious, of his power. Alexander began to make plans for the defence of the city. He a.s.sembled what troops he could muster, and garrisoned and provisioned the Castel Sant' Angelo. On December 18th, all the furniture and valuables were packed, and as Charles continued to advance, meeting with more welcome than resistance, the treasures of the Vatican were sent to the old Roman fortress. The Pope presently made a treaty with Charles, allowing him a free pa.s.sage to Naples with his army, and permitting his entry into Rome. Charles entered with a magnificent army, while the Pope with his small force sat trembling in the Vatican.

In January 1495, the Pope, terrified by the violence of the French troops, left his splendid painted suite in the Vatican and shut himself up in Sant' Angelo, where he remained while the French army sacked the city. Finally, a treaty was concluded by which Alexander ceded many of his possessions, and surrendered Prince Djem, while the king promised to recognise him as Pope, and to defend his rights, thus delivering him from his most imminent danger. The meeting of the Pope and king was arranged to take place, as if by accident, in the garden of the fortress. Charles knelt, and Alexander embraced him. The Pope bestowed the Cardinal's hat on Briconnet, a favourite of the king. On January 19th a Consistory was held, at which the king kissed the hand and foot of the Vicar of Christ, and did that formal homage which he had hitherto refused to render. Alexander celebrated a solemn Ma.s.s of reconciliation in St. Peter's, and the king acted as thurifer. On January 12th, the red hat was given to another n.o.ble of France, and on the 25th, the Pope, accompanied by Prince Djem, rode with the king in a public procession through Rome, upon which Charles departed, bent on the conquest of Naples. Having accomplished this, he was back in Rome in June, upon which Alexander fled to Orvieto and Perugia, probably taking Pintoricchio in his train. Charles's policy having taken him to the north of Italy by the end of June, Alexander returned to Rome, where he now, hearing of the defeat of the French troops in Lombardy, found courage to denounce the king.

In 1497 the rooms of the upper storey of Sant' Angelo, which Alexander at this time strongly fortified, were destroyed by an explosion of powder. They were rebuilt as quickly as possible, and the time of danger being over, Pintoricchio was again called for to immortalise the events of the last two years. There is no doubt (says Gregorovius) that Pintoricchio was in Rome at the time of Charles's entry, and was an eyewitness of that and other stirring scenes.[28] Vasari says[29] that Pintoricchio painted a number of rooms in the Castel Sant' Angelo, with grotesques, but the little tower in the garden was adorned with the history of Pope Alexander, and there could be descried Isabella, the Catholic Queen, Niccolo Orsino, Count of Pitigliano, Gianiacomo Trivulzio, and many other relatives and friends of the Pope, and in particular, Caesar Borgia, with his brother and sister, and many celebrated persons of the time. The garden tower has been pulled down, and in the upper rooms only a fragment of decoration remains, a shield supported by children in Pintoricchio's favourite manner. We are, however, indebted to Lorenzo Behaim, who for twenty-two years was the Pope's major-domo, for a list of the subjects painted in the pleasure house.[30]

[28] Gregorovius, vol. viii. part ii. p. 725.

[29] Vasari, vol. iii. p. 500.

[30] Gregorovius. _Lucrezia Borgia_, pp. 127, 128.

The whole story of the French king's entry into the capital was made to redound to the glory of the Pope. Charles was represented kneeling at his feet, taking the oath, serving at Ma.s.s. The Pope was shown investing the French ecclesiastics with the Cardinal's hat. In a procession to San Paolo, the king stood at the Pope's bridle rein, and the final scene showed the departure for Naples, accompanied by the Sultan Djem.

In comparing these in our mind with the frescoes in the Library of Siena, painted a few years later, it is possible to imagine what Pintoricchio would have made of these very similar themes. Here, as there, there is an endowment of the red hat, a Consistory, an act of homage to the enthroned Pope, and a gay procession. In the Louvre is a drawing of Pintoricchio's of three pages leaning on halberds, which may be part of the design for one of these frescoes. Djem he would have brought in again, as he depicted him in the Borgia Apartments. The number of contemporary portraits would have made this second great piece of work executed for the Borgia Pope of surpa.s.sing interest to historians.

CHAPTER VII

SPELLO

In the beginning of 1501 Pintoricchio left Perugia and went off to Spello, the little town eighteen miles to the south of it. Here the prior of the chapel of the college, Troilo Baglioni, a son of the proudest house in Perugia, had lately been created a bishop; and, naturally enough, when he wished to decorate his cathedral, he sent for the painter of his native city, who had by now made himself so famous a name. This little chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore at Spello is dark and damp enough, but in its decay it is still possible to divine something of its whilom beauty. As Pintoricchio planned his designs for it, we can see that his mind was still running on the rich work he had left in Rome two years before, and again and again he has adapted ideas from the Borgia Apartments, suiting them, with his own delicate judgment, to the smaller position and to the provincial situation. So cleverly has he managed, that the narrow chapel gains air and s.p.a.ce and outlook, and even in its dim ruin we have an instant sense of life going on all round us. He has here used the airy architectural surroundings which he had so happily dwelt upon in the Buffalini Chapel, with the result that his work gains greatly in aerial s.p.a.ce, it acquires a freshness and a refinement which is well adapted to the country district in which it is placed, and we lose that sense, which almost oppresses us amid all the fascination of the Borgia rooms, of being shut into a succession of gorgeously-jewelled caskets.

In triangles, formed in the roof by heavy borders of grotesques, Pintoricchio has placed four sibyls, Erythrean, European, Tiburtine, and Samian. Each sits in a carved niche, on a throne with raised steps; the same thrones, on a smaller scale, as those in the chamber of the Arts and Sciences in Rome. Books, open or clasped, lie about the steps; at each end of the thrones are erected altars, inscribed with the mystic sayings of the inspired women. The sibyls themselves, as they read or write or look upwards in an ecstasy, are much more elaborate in dress and fashion of hair than the symbolical figures in the Vatican. In style, they approach more nearly to the sibyls afterwards painted in the choir of Santa Maria del Popolo, or to the personages in the Library at Siena.

The three walls of the little side chapel are filled by paintings of the "Annunciation," the "Nativity," and "Christ disputing with the Doctors."

From the inscription on the "Annunciation," recording the finishing of the chapel, we gather that the painter began at the opposite side, with the "Dispute." He places this scene in the courtyard of the temple, a Bramante-like building of rather clumsy proportions, which fills the background, and has a niche on either side, with statues of Flora and Minerva. The group in the foreground suggests that Pintoricchio is still full of recollections of the "Dispute of St. Catherine," and is dwelling on the contrast he there emphasised between the fragile champion and the old philosophers. The Child is checking His arguments on His fingers in the same way, the doctors press around him in Eastern caps and turbans. On the extreme left an austere dignitary in dark robe and biretta can be no other than the bishop, Troilo Baglioni himself.

The books of the learned men are thrown upon the ground, as they listen to the Child's wisdom. Raphael has used the same incident in his "Disputa." On the right, Joseph and Mary hurry forward, but she checks her husband's impatience with her hand upon his girdle; behind Mary are several women, in whose heads we recognise models used in the "Burial of St. Bernardino," strong profiles, of which he must have had the sketches by him.

In the "Nativity," which occupies the inner wall, and which is sadly ruined by the damp and decay, Pintoricchio shakes off his Roman manner, and returns to the purely Umbrian style and to the influence of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. This must have been one of the most charming of all his frescoes. The distance stretches away, soft and harmonious, the towers and spires of the little town of Spello nestle into the blue hillside, a choir of angels which seems to have been transplanted from a panel of Fiorenzo's stands upon the clouds above, and at the angels' feet rise the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, with their branches touching the sky. The stable is represented by a lofty, cla.s.sic porch, on the roof of which sits a peac.o.c.k, Juno's bird, which Christian tradition had transferred to Mary, as the Queen of Heaven. Two beams have fallen in front of it, into the form of a cross. Midway advances the procession of the kings, winding down a mountain path, and grouped about its foot. All these serve as background to the sacred group with the shepherds, which is placed very low down, quite at the edge of the picture. Pintoricchio has shown a want of proportion between the different figures of his princ.i.p.al group, but otherwise they are excellent. The Virgin's is one of his most lovely and delicate faces. Fortunately it is uninjured, and no print can give adequately its tender beauty, above the rose and blue and deep green of the gold embroidered draperies. Joseph stands behind, raising his hands in adoring wonder; behind him, on the ground, lies such a packsaddle as is still used in Italy. The shepherds--peasants from the Umbrian hills--kneel in deep devotion, one holds his humble offering of a basket of eggs. The Child and Mother and the general arrangement of the landscape recall the little altar-piece in Santa Maria del Popolo, but the whole effect is much more beautiful, since the painter has awakened to the realisation of far-reaching s.p.a.ce.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Alinari photo_] [_Sta. Maria Maggiore, Spello_

THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS]

The "Annunciation" has the same advantage over the otherwise not dissimilar one in the Borgia Hall of Mysteries. The angel is almost identical; the Virgin, standing at her reading-desk and shrinking backwards, has all the nave charm of the school of Fiorenzo. The great Renaissance hall stretches far behind, and beyond the perspective of stately columns we see a gay little view set in the archway: a scene at the city gates, wayfarers arriving at the inn outside the walls, a table with a white cloth spread, a dog jumping up,--Pintoricchio's favourite greyhound,--hors.e.m.e.n riding on through the gateway, a well, and a woman coming to draw water. The grotesques upon the pilasters are carefully drawn, but roughly painted, and the shadows hatched in. It is in this fresco, under the little _prie-dieu_ at the side, that Pintoricchio has drawn his own portrait, which almost startles us as we catch the life-like blink of its eyes, as it looks out from among the conventionalised saints. A coral rosary and the painter's brushes are painted below, and the label, BERNARDINO PICTORICUS PERUSINUS. Perugino, a few miles off, was working at the Hall of Exchange, and one of the artists evidently took the idea from the other of painting the head in this way instead of introducing himself after the more usual fashion as a spectator.

A short distance from the town lies the little church of San Girolamo, where one is shown as Pintoricchio's a "Sposalizio" and a "Nativity."

The first cannot be his. It is a very poor little fresco, without any indications even of his influence, and more probably by some obscure follower of Perugino or Lo Spagna. The arrangement of heads of the group of maidens standing behind Mary has either been taken from, or suggested by, that in Raphael's "Sposalizio." In the "Presepio," which is on the wall of the cloister chapel (which has since been used as an outhouse), ruined as it is, we are better able to trace the master's hand. The Madonna's head is adorned with a twisted veil, and a light scarf is drawn across the breast and arranged in the same way as in the fresco over the door of the Borgia room (No. III.). The heads are all drawn with delicacy and decision, and even now we can trace original, sharp, precise touches. The man behind with the lamb on his shoulders is in Pintoricchio's simpler and earlier manner--a good sketch straight from the model. The angels on the clouds kneel stiffly, and the whole gives the impression of a very early work, which has been copied in some details for the later "Adoration of the Shepherds" in the Baglioni Chapel. The landscape, though much destroyed, still retains his characteristics.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Alinari photo_] [_Sta. Maria Maggiore, Spello_

THE ANNUNCIATION: WITH PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST]

The frescoes at Spoleto have been covered up for some years, as the chapel of the Duomo in which they are is undergoing restoration. They are described as ruined representations of a "Madonna and Saints," "G.o.d the Father," and a "Dead Christ." Vasari does not speak of any of the frescoes at Spello, nor are they noticed by Pascoli and his contemporaries, while Mariotti and Orsini, in the eighteenth century, say very little about them--Vermiglioli and Adamo Rossi first give a full account of them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Alinari photo_] [_Sta. Maria Maggiore, Spello_

PORTRAIT OF PINTORICCHIO]

CHAPTER VIII

SIENA AND THE LAST OF ROME

Few painters of the fifteenth century had received so great a share of Roman patronage as Pintoricchio, and the favour now shown him, which changed the whole of his life, came from a Cardinal who had doubtless become familiar with his Roman work.

Nearly fifty years earlier, aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, son of a n.o.ble but impoverished house of Siena, had been created Pope by the t.i.tle of Pius II. Before his elevation he had led a life full of stirring events--in his rise to greatness he had reinstated his exiled family and restored it to wealth and honour. aeneas was a man of unbounded ambition, and not always scrupulous in the means by which he obtained advancement, but he seems to have been a man of affectionate character and charming personality, his learning was deep and his taste highly cultivated; on the whole, he was honest and upright, while he was truly enthusiastic in his efforts to uphold the liberties of Christendom in the East against the dreaded advances of the Moslem. It is no wonder that his own family regarded him as a saint and hero. His nephew, Francesco Piccolomini, whom he had made Cardinal, and who eventually became Pope Pius III., decided, some forty-eight years after his uncle's death, to erect a great family memorial to him. In 1495 he had built the rich chapel of St. John in the nave of Siena Cathedral, and soon after set to work on a Library, into which he moved all the collections of books and MSS. left him by his kinsman. Lorenzo di Mariano, a Sienese sculptor, was entrusted with the marble work. The interior wood-carving was by Antonio Barili, and Antonio Ormanni designed the bronze doors. The interior was to be richly frescoed, and the Cardinal, recollecting the achievements of Pintoricchio in the service of three Popes, pa.s.sed over the painters of Siena and summoned Messer Bernardino of Perugia to undertake the great piece of work at Siena.

The contract made between the Cardinal and the painter, and dated June 29th, 1502, was discovered about twenty years ago in the Sienese archives by Sig. Milanesi. It offers many points of interest; the chief conditions are that during the time the painting is in progress he shall not undertake any other work of painting of any kind or in any place. He is to work the vaulting with fantasies and colours "which he shall judge most handsome, beautiful, and lively," to paint designs "nowadays styled the 'Grottesque.'" To draw a coat-of-arms of the Cardinal in the centre of the vaulting, "to gild it and make it fine," to make in fresco ten Histories, for which the life of the Pope shall be given him as guide, with other minute details as to the gold, ultramarine, enamel blue, azure, and greens to be used,--and the framework and gilding to be added. He is bound to draw all the designs with his own hand, both in cartoon and on the wall, and to paint, retouch, and finish all the heads himself, and the epitaphs are to be placed in an oblong s.p.a.ce between each pilaster, with the indication of the history painted above.