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The Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture

Edited by G. C. Williamson

PINTORICCHIO




THE GREAT MASTERS IN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.


_The following Volumes have been issued, price 5s. net each._

    BERNARDINO LUINI. By GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON, Litt.D., Editor of the
        Series.

    VELASQUEZ. By R. A. M. STEVENSON.

    ANDREA DEL SARTO. By H. GUINNESS.

    LUCA SIGNORELLI. By MAUD CRUTTWELL.

    RAPHAEL. By H. STRACHEY.

    CARLO CRIVELLI. By G. MCNEIL RUSHFORTH, M.A., Lecturer in Classics,
        Oriel College, Oxford.

    CORREGGIO. By SELWYN BRINTON, M.A., Author of "The Renaissance in
        Italian Art."

    DONATELLO. By HOPE REA, Author of "Tuscan Artists."

    PERUGINO. By G. C. WILLIAMSON, Litt.D.

    SODOMA. By the CONTESSA LORENZO PRIULI-BON.

    LUCA DELLA ROBBIA. By the MARCHESA BURLAMACCHI.

    GIORGIONE. By HERBERT COOK, M.A., F.S.A.

    MEMLINC. By W. H. JAMES WEALE, late Keeper of the National Art
        Library.

    PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. By W. G. WATERS, M.A.

    PINTORICCHIO. By EVELYN MARCH PHILLIPPS.


_In preparation._

    EL GRECO. By MANUEL B. COSSIO, Litt.D., Ph.D., Director of the Musee
        Pedagogique, Madrid.

    MICHAEL ANGELO. By CHARLES HOLROYD, Keeper of the National Gallery
        of British Art.

    FRANCIA. By GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON, Litt.D.

    THE BROTHERS BELLINI. By S. ARTHUR STRONG, M.A., Librarian to the
        House of Lords.

    DURER. By HANS W. SINGER, M.A., Ph.D., Assistant Director of the
        Royal Print Room, Dresden.

    WILKIE. By LORD RONALD SUTHERLAND-GOWER, M.A., F.S.A., Trustee of
        the National Portrait Gallery.

    TINTORETTO. By J. B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN, M.A. of Merton College,
        Oxford.

    MANTEGNA. By MAUD CRUTTWELL.

    GIOTTO. By F. MASON PERKINS.

    BRUNELLESCHI. By LEADER SCOTT.

_Others to follow._

LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS




    [Illustration:
    Hanfstangl, photo.      Dresden Gallery

    Portrait of a Boy,
    by Pintoricchio.]




PINTORICCHIO

    BY
    EVELYN MARCH PHILLIPPS

[Illustration]

    LONDON
    GEORGE BELL & SONS

    1901




CONTENTS


                                                                 PAGE

    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS                                         vii

    BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                   xi

    PEDIGREE                                                     xiii

    Chapter I. BIOGRAPHICAL                                         1

           II. DERIVATION AND CHARACTER OF HIS ART                 19

          III. FIRST PERIOD IN ROME                                36

           IV. LIFE IN ROME--CONTINUED                             55

            V. THE BORGIA APARTMENTS                               64

           VI. THE SAME, AND THE CASTEL SANT' ANGELO               86

          VII. SPELLO                                             100

         VIII. SIENA AND THE LAST OF ROME                         106

           IX. THE LIBRARY AT SIENA                               115

            X. PANEL PAINTINGS                                    139

    CATALOGUE OF THE WORKS OF PINTORICCHIO                        153

           AUSTRIA-HUNGARY                                        155

           BRITISH ISLES                                          155

           FRANCE                                                 156

           GERMANY                                                156

           ITALY                                                  157

           SPAIN                                                  162

    CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE                                           163

    INDEX                                                         167




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                 PAGE

    Portrait of a Boy  _Dresden Gallery_           _Frontispiece_  16

    A Miracle of San Bernardino, by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo
                                                _Perugia Gallery_  24

    Four Heads of Women (From the Sketch-Book)           _Venice_  40

    The Journey of Moses                   _Sixtine Chapel, Rome_  42

    The Baptism of Christ                              _The same_  44

    The Burial of San Bernardino. (From the Buffalini Chapel)
                                      _Church of Ara Coeli, Rome_  50

    The Glorification of San Bernardino, from the same _The same_  54

    The Annunciation           _Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome_  68

    Pope Alexander VI. adoring the Risen Christ        _The same_  70

    Detail, Figure of the Pope                         _The same_  72

    Detail from the Assumption of the Virgin--the Kneeling Man
                                                       _The same_  74

    The Story of Susanna                               _The same_  74

    St. Anthony and St. Paul--Hermits                  _The same_  76

    The Demon Women, a Detail from the above           _The same_  78

    The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian                     _The same_  78

    The Dispute of St. Catherine                       _The same_  80

    The Figure of St. Catherine, another Detail from the same
                               _Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome_  80

    Group of Heads, a Detail from the above            _The same_  82

    General View of the Hall of Liberal Arts and Sciences
                                                       _The same_  86

    The  Madonna and Child, with Angels (over the door)
                                                       _The same_  88

    Figure representing Arithmetic                     _The same_  90

    Figure representing Music                          _The same_  92

    The Adoration of the Shepherds
                                   _Sta. Maria Maggiore, Spello_  102

    The Annunciation                                  _The same_  104

    Portrait of Pintoricchio                          _The same_  104

    The Knight of Aringhieri                             _Siena_  110

    Symbolical Scene, from the Pavement in the Cathedral
                                                      _The same_  112

    The Return of Ulysses             _National Gallery, London_  114

    Study for Fresco I., by Raphael                     _Venice_  118

    Aeneas Piccolomini on his way to the Council at Basel
                                            _The Library, Siena_  120

    Frederick  III. crowning Aeneas Piccolomini as Poet Laureate
                                                      _The same_  126

    Aeneas Piccolomini sent by Frederick III. to Pope Eugenius IV.
                                                      _The same_  128

    A Group of Men, Detail from Fresco IX.            _The same_  132

    Aeneas Piccolomini elected Pope under the name of Pius II.
                                                      _The same_  134

    Pope Pius II. at Ancona                           _The same_  136

    The Madonna and Child, with St. John. (From the
        large _ancona_)                        _Perugia Gallery_  140

    The Madonna and Child, with Angels and a Donor
                                           _Duomo, San Severino_  142

    The Madonna and Child             _National Gallery, London_  146

    St. Augustine, St. Benedict, and St. Bernard, from
        the Reliquary                           _Berlin Gallery_  148

    The Christ-Child and St John the Baptist. (From
        the Holy Family)                         _Siena Gallery_  148

    Christ bearing the Cross              _Pal. Borromeo, Milan_  150




BIBLIOGRAPHY


    VASARI. Ed. G. C. Sansoni. Firenze, 1878.

    CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE. "History of Painting in Italy." 1866.

    VERMIGLIOLI. "Memorie di Pinturicchio." Perugia, 1837.

    EHRLE AND STEVENSON. "Gli affreschi del Pinturicchio nell'
        Appartamento, Borgia." 1897.

    A. SCHMARSOW. "Raphael und Pinturicchio in Siena." Stuttgart, 1880.

    A. SCHMARSOW. "Pinturicchio in Rom." Stuttgart, 1882.

    E. STEINMANN. "Pinturicchio," No. 37, Knackfuss Series. 1898.

    B. BERENSON. "Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance." 1897.

    DEAN KITCHIN. "History of Pius II."

    GREGOROVIUS. "History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages."




                                 BIAGIO.
                                   |
                               BENEDETTO.
                                   |
                               BERNARDINO,
                    Painter, called Il Pintoricchio,
                       _b. circa_ 1454; _d._ 1513;
          _m._ Grania, daughter of Niccolo of Modena or Bologna
                                  |
       +-----------+---------+----------+-------------+----------+
       |           |         |          |             |          |
    GIULIO     CAMILLO,   FAUSTINA   EGIDIA,      FAUSTINA,  ADRIANA,
    CESARE,    _b._ 1509  GIROLAMA,  or GILIA,    _m._       _d._ 1519;
    _b._ 1506  in Siena.  _b._ 1510  _m._         Filippodi  _m._
    in Siena.             in Siena.  Girolamo     di         Guiseppe
                                     di Paolo,    Paolo      da
                                     a Perugian,  of         Giovanni
                                     called Il    Deruta.    of
                                     Paffo,                  Perugia
                                     soldier
                                     of the
                                     Piazza
                                     in Siena.

                 (From MILANESI'S _Appendix to Vasari_.)





PINTORICCHIO


CHAPTER I

BIOGRAPHICAL


Pintoricchio is not one of the most famous painters of the Italian
Renaissance, and perhaps no painter who has left us such a mass of work,
and work of such interest, has attracted so little criticism and
inquiry. From the time of Vasari's slighting biography onwards, he has
been included among minor painters and passed over with very superficial
examination. No separate life of him in English exists, no attempt has
been made to consider his work in anything like exhaustive detail, or to
define his charm. It would be idle to claim for him a place in the first
rank: some may question his right to stand in the second; in some of the
greatest essentials he will not pass muster--yet charm he does possess,
qualities whose fascination draws those who are open to it back to him
again and again with fresh pleasure; and for this, and because he
presents us with so true a type of the Umbrian painter of the
Renaissance, it is worth while trying to unravel his history.

Before we try to disentangle the origin of his art, before we compare
his different periods and examine the paintings he has left us, we must
make some attempt to arrive at his personality, to see the man as he
was, to gain what clue we may, by this means, to the work in which his
life was spent.

Nothing can be more meagre than the few hints we have of his origin and
early history, and yet we can probably construct a pretty correct
outline of their chief features. Vermiglioli in 1837 made a careful
examination of the archives of Perugia and Siena, and was the first to
endeavour to rehabilitate the artist, and to re-awaken that public
interest which was so liberally bestowed on him in his lifetime. He was
born at Perugia about 1454, if we are to believe Vasari, who tells us
that when he died in 1513 he was in his fifty-ninth year. His father was
one Benedetto or Benedecto, and he was christened Bernardino Benedetto
(afterwards shortened to Betto or Betti). The famous saint, Bernardino
of Siena, had died ten years earlier and was canonised in 1550. During
his last years his preaching had made a great sensation in Perugia, and
no doubt numbers of children born at this time were dedicated to him. A
document of 1502 exists at Siena,[1] in which Pintoricchio is styled the
son of Benedetto di Biagio, so that we thus learn the bare names of his
father and grandfather. We have no means of knowing their standing, but
the entire absence of any mention of relatives or inheritance makes it
probable that he came of poor people, and was not blessed with any close
family ties. We know nothing of what was the childhood of the "little
painter," only the nickname of "il sordicchio," the deaf one, suggests
that this infirmity may have been one reason why he was dedicated to an
artist's career; but the deafness could hardly have been very
remarkable, as it is never alluded to otherwise, nor does it appear to
have hampered Bernardino's intercourse with the world. There is a faint
tradition[2] that his home was near the Porto San Christoforo, which,
while hardly worth notice, indicates that his youth was passed in
Perugia.

    [1] _Archivio dei Contratti._ Vasari, iii. p. 513, note I._e._

    [2] Vermiglioli, p. 8.

From the tendencies which all his life clung about his work, we surmise
that he began his artistic career under one of the miniature painters
who then flourished in Perugia. Vermiglioli refers to a series of
miniature paintings belonging to his family, which Orsini, in his
researches into the history of Umbrian painting, had already mentioned
as resembling Pintoricchio's work, especially in the use made of
architecture. At the time he was growing up there was a flourishing
college of miniaturists in Perugia, which had reconstructed its statutes
in 1436.

Vasari thus comments upon Bernardino: "Some are helped by fortune,
without being much endowed by merit;... one knows that Fortune has sons
who depend on her help without any virtue of their own, and she is
pleased that they should owe their exaltation to her favour, when they
would never have been known for their own merit."[3] But Vasari
evidently knew nothing of the good or bad fortune of Pintoricchio's
early days, and was merely balancing his own estimate of the artist
against the consideration he received in later years.

    [3] Vasari, iii. p. 493.

Natural bent and circumstance combined to form Bernardino Betti into an
Umbrian of the Umbrians, placing him on the less powerful but more
indigenous side of the sharply-divided line which ran through the
artistic life of the country. There is sufficient suggestion of
Benedetto Bonfigli in some of his work, to make it probable that he
joined the school which Bonfigli had established in Perugia in the early
part of the fifteenth century. Vasari speaks of him as an assistant and
friend of the older master. Here he would have been brought into close
contact with Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, who must have been considerably the
senior of Pintoricchio, as he was undertaking important commissions as
early as 1472.[4] It is this master whose influence is most strongly
stamped upon him. Afterwards, as we shall see, he constantly transferred
figures from Fiorenzo's panels to his own, while in the older man's
compositions we can pick out others which have more of Pintoricchio than
Fiorenzo; but the latter, though full of originality and attraction as
he is, never advances beyond a certain point, and always retains
something of the archaic.

    [4] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iii. 153.

It is in 1482 that Bernardino first emerges from the realm of
conjecture, and appears, forming part of that brilliant group which was
gathered together in Rome to decorate the walls of Sixtus IV.'s
newly-built chapel.

Already he may have been confused in Umbria with the very inferior
master, Bernardino Mariotto of Perugia, who lived for many years at San
Severino, where he had a school in the monastery of the old town. His
paintings have often been assigned to his contemporary, and this is
very likely the reason that the latter always signs and calls himself
Pintoricchio. While he endeavoured to guard against being credited with
works he had not produced, he has been robbed of those really due to
him. It is strange indeed that for several centuries the part he took in
such a great work as the Sixtine Chapel should have been ignored, for it
was the success of these frescoes which sufficed to establish his fame
in Rome, and for some years after this we find him in full employment
there. The chapel was completed in 1485, but Pintoricchio's part was
probably finished earlier, and it is at this time that most critics
concur in placing his work in the church of Ara Coeli. He had
commended himself to the patronage and friendship of Domenico della
Rovere, brother of Pope Sixtus, and was a guest at his house in the
Palazzo di SS. Apostoli, where he painted a decoration, and he was also
employed at this time in the Palazzo Colonna. In the two following
years, Pintoricchio was employed in the Belvedere of the Vatican by Pope
Innocent VIII. He painted there the series of pictures of towns owning
the papal sway, which Taja mentions as existing, though in a much
injured condition, in 1750, and which was repainted under Pius VII.[5]
In the years immediately following he was decorating the chapels in
Santa Maria del Popolo, doing much with his own hand, but already
employing assistants and superintending their share.

    [5] Vasari, iii. p. 498, note "Milanesi."

A document in the archives of the cathedral at Orvieto, as to which
Vasari knew nothing, or was silent, dated 1492, informs us of an
agreement made with the chapter to paint two evangelists and two
Fathers in the cathedral. The price was to be a hundred ducats. There
was a good deal of coming and going between Rome and Orvieto, and in
that year he was paid fifty ducats for the portion of work done, and
also began a small picture in the tribune, but fell into a violent
quarrel with the ecclesiastics, who averred that the first part of the
work was not painted according to agreement. Their real objection seems
to have been that they were getting frightened at the quantity of gold
and ultramarine employed, which was more than the chapter could afford.
There was some talk of taking the work from him, and it was certainly
interrupted for a time.[6] He was probably very willing to return to
Rome, for a third Pope was now providing him with work,--no less a
personage than Alexander VI., who, as Cardinal Borgia, had already given
great encouragement to the artist in Rome, and who now entrusted
Pintoricchio with the decoration of his private apartments. The quarrel
with the monks at Orvieto must, however, have been made up, and he
returned to finish their transept, for we find Pope Alexander writing to
the Orvietans in March 1494 to beg that they will release Pintoricchio
and let him come back to Rome to finish what he had begun in the Borgia
rooms.

    [6] Della Valle. _Storia del duomo d'Orvieto._

In this year the Pope remunerated him by adding to the money paid in the
contracts a grant of an ample piece of land, situated at Chiugi near
Perugia, at an annual rent of thirty baskets of grain.[7] The Borgia
rooms could but just have been completed when, in January 1495, the Pope
was driven to take refuge from the French king's invasion of his city in
the fortified castle of Sant' Angelo. His court painter would naturally
have gone with him, and when the Pope fled to Orvieto and Perugia in the
summer of 1495, Pintoricchio went homewards in his train. In the next
few months, an altar-piece for the monks of the monastery of Santa Maria
degli Angeli must have been under discussion; for in February 1496 the
contract was signed for the great polyptych now in the Gallery at
Perugia. The fulfilment of this contract had to await the master's
leisure; for a month later, on March 15th, he signs a fresh contract
with the Orvietans for two Fathers of the church to be painted in the
great chapel over the principal altar. He was to receive fifty ducats,
six quarters of grain, such wine as might be necessary, and to have the
use of a house, besides what gold and ultramarine he might require. The
archives of the cathedral contain minute records of every payment made,
and on the 15th November of that year he received the last
instalment.[8] The documents contain allusions to other paintings by
him, but the only traces that remain are a St. Gregory, a prophet, and
two angels which have some likeness to his school or his followers.

    [7] _Archives of Perugia_, vol. viii. ter.

    [8] Della Valle. _Storia del duomo d'Orvieto._

In 1497 we have a deed, issued October 24th, commuting the tax levied
upon the painter's grant of land. In this is recited and set forth
Pintoricchio's complaint that the tax is too heavy, and that it swallows
up all the revenues. The claim is admitted to be well founded on the
part of "a faithful and devoted servant of Alexander and the Church, to
whom a recompense is due for his art in painting and adorning the
apostolic palace and our residence in arc castri Angeli." Instead of the
grain, a yearly tax of two pounds of white wax was adjudged on July
28th, to be paid on the Feast of the Assumption, for two years, by
decree of the Cardinal Camerlengo.[9] A further endorsement shows that
the municipal authorities were inclined to ignore the papal decree; but
a third brief, in May 1498, confirms the tenure of the land and
tenements, and in February 1499 the first commutation is extended for a
further term. After all these gracious concessions, it is surprising to
find the tax-gatherers in the same year again trying to exact the
condoned thirty baskets. Pintoricchio once more appealed to the Pontiff,
with whom he was in high favour, and Alexander ordered that restitution
should be made in effects or money, according to the price at which
grain was valued on the Piazza in Perugia on the first Saturday in
August; and in September we find Pintoricchio receiving of the
vice-treasurer, Bonifazio Coppi, eighty florins in return for the tax
extorted in opposition to the papal behest.[10]

    [9] Vermiglioli, App. pp. viii. and x.

    [10] Mariotti, p. 131.

While this interesting decision was in the balance, Bernardino was once
more in Rome, and able to plead his own cause, for about July 1497 he
was recalled there, and spent a year frescoing the castle of Sant'
Angelo for the Pope, but in the following year he was back at home, and
finished the polyptych for Santa Maria dei Fossi. Probably about this
time he married, and he may also have visited Spoleto, besides
producing a good many panel paintings, for no very definite work can be
assigned to these years in Perugia. He was very naturally engrossed with
his new wife, and busy with his little property, and not undertaking any
important commissions.

In October of the following year, Caesar Borgia, son of the painter's
great patron, was encamped at Deruta, the little town that lies out
among the hills, a few miles west of Perugia. Pintoricchio visited him
here while he was resting after his campaign in the Romagna, and
obtained an order desiring the vice-treasurer to get permission for him
to sink a cistern in his house in Perugia. What interests us even more
than this domestic detail is Caesar's statement that he has "again" taken
into his service Bernardino Pintoricchio of Perosa, whom he always loved
because of his talents and gifts, and he desires that in all things he
shall be treated "as one of ours."[11] Caesar's expression that he had
"again" taken him into his service, suggests that he had not quite
recently been retained by the Pope.

    [11] _Conestabile Archives._

Very soon after his visit to the Borgia's camp, he was in treaty with
the Cardinal of Spello, thirteen miles from Perugia, to decorate the
chapel of his House; but before leaving home he was elected Decemvir of
the city, a proof of how high he stood in repute among his
fellow-citizens. It could only have been an honorary distinction, for
his work in Spello must have taken all his remaining time in Umbria to
accomplish. One short visit he was to pay to his own province, but
early in 1502 the summons reached him which changed the course of his
life. Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini made him the offer which caused him
to move to Siena and begin one of his most important undertakings.

Siena is a long journey from Perugia across the hills and plains that
lie around Lake Thrasymene, past Chiugi, and so through the breadth of
Italy. It brought the painter into new surroundings, and took him quite
out of the beaten track. The long and elaborate contract between the
Cardinal and the painter must have taken no little time to discuss and
agree upon, but it was finished and signed June 29, 1502. During the
following autumn and winter, he made his preparations, gathered his
workmen and assistants together, and by the spring of 