CHAPTER XII

_In Umbria_

L'Apennin est franchi, et les collines modérées, les riches plaines bien encadrées commencent à se déployer et à s'ordonner comme sur l'autre versant. Cà et là une ville en tas sur une montagne, sorte de môle arrendi, est un ornement du paysage, comme on en trouve dans les tableaux de Poussin et de Claude. C'est l'Apennin, avec ses bandes de contre-forts allongés dans une péninsule étroite, qui donne à tout le paysage italien son caracterè; point de longs fleuves ni de grandes plaines: des valleés limitées, de nobles formes, beaucoup de roc et beaucoup de soleil, les aliments et les sensations correspondantes; combien de traits de l'individu et de l'histoire imprimés par ce caractère!

H. TAINE, _Voyage en Italie_.

We cannot study the history of a single town without acquiring a certain knowledge of the towns around it, for the character of one set of people was formed and influenced by that of another, and the land on which cities are built is often in itself an explanation of their past. In no country perhaps are these facts more strongly marked than in Umbria, where even the smallest hamlet is perched upon a high hill-side as though to provoke attention, and where the larger cities glare at each other from commanding eminences, seeming, even in this peaceful nineteenth century, to challenge one another by the mere aspect of their mighty walls.

We cannot stay long in Perugia without getting its surrounding landscape stamped upon our minds. That circle of small cities so distinctly seen: Assisi, Spello, Foligno to the east, Montefalco, Trevi, Bettona, and Torgiano to the south, and Città della Pieve westwards, all of them perched upon their separate hill-top around the bed of the now vanished lake (see chapter i.), excite one's fancy and one's longing, at first perhaps 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 most remote villages, is made extremely easy. The inhabitants are friendly and courteous, and utterly unspoiled by tourists. The inns are clean, the main roads excellent; prices reasonable, and carriages, with few exceptions, good. From a romantic or artistic point of view, nothing can excel the charm of such travelling. We are weary of hearing the stated fact that every town in Italy is worth the visiting; but, however hackneyed the remark, we must make it once again in the case of the towns around Perugia. Each has an individual charm, a long and carefully recorded 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 has made its churches monuments of art and history, a centre for pilgrims and for painters throughout a period of nearly seven hundred years; and quite apart from its history as a town (the walls of Assisi date back to 400 B.C.) this presence or possession of the saints has excited a whole literature of art and of devotion.

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

GUBBIO.

The road to Gubbio from Perugia leads over a mountain pass as wild, and as forbidding in its aspect, as that of any in the Alps. Leaving the broad and wooded valley of the Tiber it winds in long fantastic wind-swept curves across the spines of the lower Apennines, then plunges somewhat suddenly down into the smiling fields and oak woods of the valley under Gubbio. The position of the town is most remarkable. It looks out on a smiling peaceful valley, but is backed by a terrific mountain gorge which would serve as an iron breastplate in the time of siege. Gubbio is a small brown-coloured town, compact and perfect in its parts; it has never changed since the middle ages. A fine Roman theatre, a mysterious Roman mausoleum, fallen asleep on the cornfields outside the 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 the spirit of their ancestors; the worship, which is almost like a fetish worship, of their patron Saint Ubaldo is as passionate in its intensity to-day as it was seven hundred years ago, when Barbarossa threatened to destroy the town.[113] There is scarcely a single new building in Gubbio. The great weaving-looms in the piazza are a relic of the city's commerce in the Middle Ages, and the exquisite line of the palace of her rulers, Palazzo dei Consoli, with the slim bell tower soaring up against the barren outline of the gorge, lives in one's memory long after many other points of Umbrian cities are forgotten.

Gubbio's bell tower and Gubbio's Madonna are points which we remember with delight. Almost every Umbrian city has its local painter. Nelli is the painter of Gubbio and the gem of all his works has been left on the actual 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 fields all round it the flax shone grey and blue like a lagune. Had Nelli seen such 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 put together.[114]

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 or forbidding, nothing Etruscan about the smiling little town; the sunlight and the air crept into the heart of its streets and seemed to linger there. Yet these were narrow and steep and made for war and not for peace or comfort, just like the streets of Perugia. Their character indeed is so purely mediæval and untouched, that the chains which guarded them at nightfall are even left hanging in one place to the walls.

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

Pinturicchio is the painter of Spello; there is much of his work in the churches. He came there to paint for Troilo, one of the Baglioni, lords of Spello. Hence he was called to Siena to do his well-known series of frescoes for the Piccolomini. A whole chapel in S. Maria Maggiore is covered with his works, and he has put his own portrait amongst them with a string of beads, a brush and palette hanging from it. The artist's face is thin and melancholy, but the frescoes round it are large in line and treatment and some of the best specimens of his religious work. There they stand mouldering mysteriously in the dim light of the little old church for which this master made them four hundred years ago. We lingered long before them, then passed back into the sunlit street and drove away through the gate of the town with the Roman senators above it and out across the hot dry plain to the city of Foligno.[115]

FOLIGNO.[116]

Sunk, as it were, in a broad basin of plain, through which the quiet waters of Clitumnus drain slowly to the Tiber, is the city of Foligno--that city which Perugia so detested, so offended in the past. The town has all the character of the towns of the plain. Driving through its straight and even streets we felt as though we were in Lombardy, in Padua or Ferrara. There were Lombard lions in the porch and Lombard beasts around the arch of the Duomo. The houses were all shut up, square, silent, cool, preparing, as it seemed, for summer heat and dust, 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 scattered through the churches, and more is gathered together in the small Pinacoteca together with that of other early Umbrian masters. Very gold and brown the frescoes seemed, very sober and religious in their sentiment. Here one could study the Umbrian school, apart from the Peruginesque, and it struck us that the art of the first Umbrian painters 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 feet of the painters, and was only influenced at certain purely decorative points by the teaching of the Florentines. The angels were the Umbrian children, well groomed, well fed, and wholly unaffected. Neither Paganism nor Christianity had very much to do with them. When Perugino's ripened influence came in, they weakened as garden flowers weaken, in their power of appeal through pure simplicity. The first faces of Umbrian saints and angels were simple like the Umbrian dog-rose. Perugino turned them into garden roses. Both in their way were fair, but the former flowers seemed nearer the divine than those which had been trained and cultivated.

It is not possible to mention here all the pictures of Foligno. There are two fine Alunnos in S. Niccolò; and a rather surprising Mantegna with the colour of brown wine--colour of passion and pain, which clashes with the Perugino just beside it--on the chapel of the Nunziatella. The Palazzo Communale is covered with the work of Nelli, but one feels that the painter who so loved what was gay and rich and beautiful (see his picture at Gubbio) wanted a lot more gold and ultramarine than his patron 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 into the soil around it. Inside are many faded frescoes, brown and gold, and full of almost painful early sentiment. As we stood among them in the dusk, a blackbird poured a flood of freshest song in through the door from the light of the courtyard. "How your bird sings!" we said to the custode. "Yes," said the man; "he sings all day; but whether for love or rage I cannot tell." ... And it struck us that no Umbrian of a hill town, or no Perugian anyway, would have made this profoundly melancholy statement about a tame bird's song.

MONTEFALCO

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

The town stands on a hill in the very heart of Umbria, and hence it is called by the people the _ringhiera d'Umbria_. We saw it "on a day of many days," and it struck us that this was the site of the city of our dreams--the best, the fairest we had ever met in travel. The sun was low as we drove through the gates. Far below us and around us stretched the Umbrian landscape, the bed of the old Umbrian lake: long green waves of blue and green, seething in the heated air of the May afternoon.[117]

The town felt very quiet and deserted. The grass grew everywhere through the stones of its piazza. In silence the children played, in silence the women sat at their doors, the place had fallen asleep. But once the city knew prosperity, and many painters climbed the steep roads from the plain below, and came to Montefalco to leave some impress of their art upon the walls of chapels and of churches. Hither came Benozzo Gozzoli in 1449, and here he painted many of his early frescoes. What brought the splendid Florentine to the tiny town we wondered? He came in the very prime of his youth, and they say that he did so, simply because he was connected with the Dominicans of the place. Certainly he settled here for seven years or so, did good work, and spread the influence of Florence throughout the minds of the rising Umbrian masters. Benozzo's early work at Montefalco is fresh, raw, naïve. It lacks the finish and the gilded ornaments of the Riccardi chapel, but in exchange it holds a certain simple and religious sentiment which is lacking in his later frescoes. The best of his paintings are in the church of S. Francesco,[118] and there are several other good pictures of the Umbrian painters here--a fine Tiberio d'Assisi and some things by Melanzio. In one of the latter, a portrait of the painter by himself--a tall, slim youth with long light hair and earnest face full of quiet thought and strength. Melanzio is the painter of Montefalco, and luckily his work is well preserved in many of the churches. The little frieze of angels playing with carnations above the left hand altar as one enters the church of the Illuminata, is one of the most fascinating bits of detail that 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 these we remember little; but the lanes which led to the convent we never shall forget. They were warm deep lanes and the hedges above were full of dog-roses and honeysuckle, the light inside was green and blue like the landscape down upon the plain. The lanes of Montefalco were as beautiful a vision as we have ever seen. Like the frescoes of Melanzio they had the colour of a tropic butterfly, and like the flight of butterflies they hover in our memory.

FOLIGNO TO SPOLETO.

In the very height of the midday we left Foligno and took the road to Spoleto. It is a fine broad road, passing along the site of the old Flaminian Way, grand, dusty, white, with a feeling that Rome is at the end of it, and Umbria but a little land to be passed quickly by. As we trundled along in our clumsy landau dragged by a pair of miserable horses, we thought of all the popes, the emperors and legions, who, going south or northwards, had passed in this direction. The dust flew up and almost choked us; it was the week of the wild roses, and the hedges were all aglow with their delicious blossoms, their petals bent wide back as though to catch the very essence of the sunlight on their golden stamens. We left the main road a little below Trevi, and driving through fields and oak woods, passed up the hills by a steep short cut which leads to the town above. This road cannot be recommended to travellers unless they go on foot; our poor little city horses struggled painfully over the sand and pebbles of the numerous streams it crosses. But what a stretch of country for the artist! Everywhere the poppies were in flower--a shimmer of pure cadmiums and carmines under the oaks and the olives. After about an hour's climb we came out suddenly on the broad 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 the line to Rome. It stands, as one expects all Umbrian towns to stand, a crown of buildings closely packed upon a little hill-top. The city felt bare and baked when we entered it, and we left it soon to wander round its bastion-road; a thing which was fairer far than all the pictures in the churches.[119] Long we sat in the grasses, tracing out the landmarks in the heat mist far below us: Montefalco in the foreground, Perugia behind it, Assisi and Spello a little to the right, and, sunk in the broad plain of the Clitumnus, just as Raphael painted them four hundred years ago, the houses and the towers of Foligno.

THE TEMPLE OF CLITUMNUS.

"Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus Victima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro, Romanos ad templa Deum duxere triumphos." Georg. ii. 146.

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

With the following stanzas passing through one's mind, one may linger very long and pleasantly down by the water's edge, and dragging one's hands in the cool stream, and looking towards the temple up above, dream golden dreams of river gods and hamadryads as well as of "milk white steer."

"But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave Of the most living crystal that was e'er The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters! And most serene of aspect, and most clear; Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters-- A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters!

"And on thy happy shore a Temple still, Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, Upon a mild declivity of hill, Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps The finny darter with the glittering scales, Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.

"Pass not unblest the Genius of the place! If through the air a zephyr more serene Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace Along his margin a more eloquent green, If on the heart the freshness of the scene Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust Of weary life a moment lave it clean With Nature's baptism,--'tis to him ye must Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust."

See "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," Canto IV., stanza lxvi., etc.

SPOLETO.

Late in the light of a thundery evening we drove into the town of Spoleto. As our weary horses dragged us through the city gates, and up and under the walls of the silent town, a sort of terror and of gloom possessed our spirits. Here was something new and big and strange. What did it mean? Gradually we became accustomed 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 know it nowadays, in gentle fields, in lanes, and hills and sunny pastures--in those same things which gave to the Umbrian saints and painters the spirit of peace. Spoleto had none of these. Spoleto is purely Umbrian, as far as geography goes, she was at one time the head of Umbrian matters, but the town was always independent, a thing apart, or rather, perhaps, influenced by the influence of larger rules and kingdoms. Hers is a stirring history,[121] and the sense of her wars and of her dukes lives on within her stones, and is stamped upon her houses and her church walls. There was a smell of dukes and cardinals, of pomposity and vastness, even in the rooms of our inn[122]; and the very landscape round seemed throttled by the passing of imperial people. It was as though a great emperor had taken a peasant girl and dressed her up in gorgeous clothes and given her a splendid palace for a home. The girl (the gentle spirit of Umbria) withered, but the palace built for her remained, and the best thing about it--its grand supply of freshest water from the hills above, brought down in great Roman aqueducts--has never been removed.

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

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

* * * * *

Very few treasures of art are left in the town itself, and these are as bruised, as scattered, and unsatisfactory as those of any city whose history is one of fighting and perpetual sieges rather than of artists or of fame. Lo Spagna lived at Spoleto, and worked there largely; but the gentle style of his colouring, the peace and often affectation of his figures seems out of place on the altars of half barbaric or barocco churches. Everywhere there are bits of Roman building picked up and stuck about on pavements and façades: a painful mixture, lacking care and order. Several of the churches have good Lombard fronts; the Chiesa del Crocifisso is built from the ruins of a Roman temple, but the place is only a pain to see in its dilapidation.

The Duomo is a really impressive building, with a splendid Lombard front--a broad balcony supported by columns, and eight rose windows above it. The roof of the choir is painted by Filippo Lippi.

Filippo Lippi died at Spoleto in 1489. He was poisoned, some say, this Florentine 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 objects of interest of their own that they must needs keep the bones of this great painter for an ornament. So Lorenzo caused his tomb to be built in the cathedral of Spoleto. As we turned from the long Latin inscription written above it we felt that Browning's lines would have served the purpose just as well, and much more shortly:

"_Flower o' the clove,_ _All the Latin I construe is, 'amo' I love!_"

NARNI.

Leaving Trevi and its cataracts to the left we passed in the train to Narni. We came there for an hour, we stayed a whole day and a night, fascinated by the marvellous view which met us from the windows of the inn.[123] Part of the city of Narni is built immediately upon the steep crags which overhang the gorge of the Nar. From this side the position of the city may be practically called inaccessible, and over it our windows looked. We had seen the Umbrian plains and valleys, we had seen Spoleto; Narni again was a fresh surprise, it seemed to represent to us the Umbrian Alps. The place has a tempestuous history. There is a certain beaten look about its walls which reminded us of Perugia, and, indeed, the cities are alike in many ways. Both were practically in the power of the Popes whilst considering themselves as independent republics, both fostering perpetual feuds between the neighbouring cities.[124] But whereas Perugia has kept an ample record of her past, that of Narni is almost obliterated. Through a piece of misguided policy she laid herself open to a horrible siege in 1527 (see pamphlet by Giuseppe 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 almost unexpectedly, and unexpectedly we stayed, wandering through its streets, discovering with delight the rare and lovely bits of Lombard tracery on house and church door, and passing in and out between the Roman gateways.[125] At night we sat in the quiet rooms

of the Angelo inn, and listened to the nightingales which sang with their 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 took the train for Orte. We left the sun at the same time as we left the green and wooded hills and valleys. The rain came down in sheets at Orte; and we found ourselves in the deadly land--the land of grey volcanic strata, bare like a bone, in the valley of the Paglia. Dreary enough was the outlook when we came to Orvieto. The city seemed as though it had been drenched in the ink of a wounded sepia; the streets were black and foul, the houses low and closely packed; walls without towers, dwindled and decayed rather than bombarded, and people with fever-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 peacock in a hen-coop, a miracle of marbles and mosaics--the Duomo of Orvieto!... No one who has ever seen the building can forget it, for it is like a great surprise; it startles and astounds one in the midst of the decay around it. Here, if anywhere in Umbria, the power of the Pope or 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] To describe its splendours were in this small sketch a mere impertinence. But if we wish to see what is perhaps the finest bit of Gothic work in Italy, if we wish to learn the power of Signorelli's painting, it is certain that we must come hither and study at Orvieto.

* * * * *

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

Signorelli painted a picture of the Inferno for Orvieto, Sangallo built for it an Inferno in bricks! Feathery mosses, sombre ferns have grown across the inside walls of the great _pozzo_ (which was built on a scale to suit a train of ascending and descending elephants); they seemed to seethe like sulphurous smoke in the dark and fetid air and we hurried from it gladly into the rain of the street....

CHIUSI.

From Orvieto we went to Chiusi. The rain went with us too, and of the town itself we saw but little, only all around us in the dense woods, in the silent soaking air of night, the nightingales were singing their piercing penetrating songs of love and May. The air was full of the strong sweet voices and of the scent of growing leaves, of privet, and wet earth. Chiusi is a centre of interest to students of Etruscan history, and although the little town exports its treasures to every museum in Europe its own is full of beauties still. We lingered long among them, fascinated by the goblin birds which are perched upon the vases and the pent roof of the tombs, fascinated by the excellence and the variety of the greater part of all the objects in the cases. The rain poured pitilessly upon the streets of Chiusi; it swept in sheets across the lake and over the towers of Montepulciano, and we abandoned all hopes of going to the tombs themselves and drove away across the marshes 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 ville la plus merveilleuse de l'Ombrie," says M. Broussole; and we ourselves in many ways agreed with him. The charm of the town consists firstly, in its situation, and secondly, in its association. It commands wide views northwards over the lakes of Chiusi and of Trasimene, and southwards towards Rome. The hill on which it stands is densely wooded, there is perpetual peace in its streets, it is the birth-place of Pietro Perugino 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 found ourselves at service in the church of Santa Maria dei Servi.

* * * * *

It was May, the month of Mary. The people from the town came pouring in for benediction. They were nearly all of them very poor people, the men haggard with perpetual labour in the fields,[129] quiet and eager even when very old; the girls fair, slim, colourless, their shawls too well defining the slender slope of their thin shoulders; the children brown and fascinating, and the older women lost in prayer. (We have noticed that the veriest hags in Umbria seem to pray as though they fully realised the sins of their forefathers, and felt the present generation needed all their prayers.) Peace and poverty were the two things which were stamped most clearly on the faces of the congregation. The priests themselves looked poor and worn, shorn of their fat homes and privileges. There were not many candles on the altar and these they lighted slowly one by one. Then they begun to sing a long low wailing chaunt in praise of Mary.

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

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

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

"Oh! qui nous délivrera du mal de science! N'est-ce point folie d'avoir étouffé à grand peine tous les meilleurs instincts de notre être, pour obéir à la mode du jour et nous faire une âme critique! Adieu les beaux enthousiasmes! On n'ose plus aimer la vérité d'aujourd'hui depuis qu'on ne sait jamais qu'elle sera celle de demain! Il y, a des erreurs dont on ne peut se consoler. Quelle pitié de s'être prosterné tant de fois avec toutes les tendresses de son âme croyante devant un escalier vermoulu que des moines trompeurs exhibaient depuis des siècles comme ayant abrité la sainte pénitence d'un saint Alexis qui n'a jamais existé! Ne donnons plus jamais notre coeur à la vérité! Promenons sur les choses et les hommes l'eternel sourire de notre indifférence moqueuse. C'est là qu' est le plaisir et le charme de la saine critique. Tout sera parfait quand les histoires commenceront et finiront par ce gai refrain _Chi lo sa_."[131]

* * * * *

_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 the May-time: white roads and poppy fields, the oak woods under Trevi, the ilex groves of Spoleto, the long low lines of shining Trasimene, the marshy shores of Chiusi; and still more fair and more romantic, the cool green stream of the Clitumnus flowing beneath the pagan temple of a Roman 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 and piles 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 and of quarrelling, of burying and strife? What in fact about all these Perugian P's:--_Persecuzione_, _Protezione_, _Processione_; Popes, people, painters, and _Priori_? What had all these persons done to touch or trammel permanently the eternal smile of Umbrian nature through which we had been passing? Surely there were lovers who, amongst the savage bands of men who skirmished down the hill across the plains in order to insult or to offend their neighbours, stopped to snatch a white rose from the hedges where they grew in thousands? And there were women, young and pure and peaceful, ignorant of the Pope, indifferent to the Baglioni, who waited for them in their homes--women with the faces of Bonfigli's angels, Bonfigli's roses, maybe, twisted in their hair?...

With dim delight we realised that whatever the doings of the past may have been in Umbria as elsewhere, the microscopic scratches made by him through centuries upon the calm smooth breast of Nature have now all turned to a delicate adornment. The war and the strife, the hurrying and skurrying to power have vanished utterly. Man's work is there: wonderful little cities of men made one with Nature now; frescoes fading into death around the quiet altars of forgotten churches, fortresses and wells and city walls, bridges and the tombs of vanished nations; new buildings rising here and there upon the old, new people praying or parading, where the old had fought and prayed. But above them all the balm of sun and rain, of rivers, lakes and water-courses doing their work.

* * * * *

As the twilight fell we left the church. Early the following morning we turned our faces northward on Perugia, but took a last long look at Perugino's altar-piece in the church of the Disciplinati. Faint golds, faint greens, a quiet landscape, with low hills falling peacefully on a low stretch of valley. No harsh shadows, no high lights, the shepherds crossing down the paths behind their browsing sheep. The Virgin, a type of purest girlhood with just enough of the woman in the way she holds the 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, the baker and the smith, the driver and the local painter. "You see," said the smith, "it is a very beautiful thing this picture of ours; and when we hear it is uncovered we come to see it too. We particularly like that white dog in the background, and the shepherds are exactly like the life. 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 of the youthful king who holds the chalice in Pietro's fresco, it merely lacked the affectation, and his perfectly simple comments seemed to us more genuine and impressive than many books of critics. We listened to them gladly, but as we turned our faces homewards, we remembered certain other subtle and delightful phrases written by Alinda Brunamonti upon a work of Perugino. With these calm words we close a book which opened with the clash of swords and the conflicts of the Umbrian people:

"Sorrow does not disturb serenity; pain is at enmity with joy but not with peace. This Christian law is incarnated within our art. Peace and not joy is in her idylls; peace in the landscapes which are so utterly our own, and so serenely beautiful. How often--even whilst my vision wandered into the infinitude of sky behind our blue green hills, and further again beyond the outposts of the Apennines, and further still away into the depths of the azure-laden air--have I not said unto myself; 'This vision surely is of an insuperable loveliness! How therefore could our artists fail to be above all things _ideal_ when Nature of herself had trained them in schools of such an exquisite perfection?'"

INDEX

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.

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.

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.

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 and CAVACASELLE, 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.

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 destroys _campanile_ 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.

I

INNOCENT III., Pope, 25; first _padrone_ 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 Palazzo _dei 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.

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 called _dei Priori_ and _del 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 the _Rocca 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 the _Tre Communi_, 29; rebels against Papal authority, 30; acknowledges dominion of Urban VI., 31; 32; 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.

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.

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., quoted 112; 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.

PRINTED BY TURNBULL AND SPEARS, EDINBURGH

FOOTNOTES:

[1] One of the most common explanations of the ship on Etruscan coins is that these people were the first to bring ships to Italy.

[2] Umbria was originally incorporated in the province of Tuscany.

[3] Among the precious objects kept at the Palazzo Pubblico which are described by Frollieri (see Arch. Storico, v. 16 part ii.) are two talons of the griffin, whose capture we read of in Ciatti. These had been given to the general of the Franciscan order by the king of France, and in 1453 he handed the talons over to the city of Perugia.

[4] Dare we presume that the University of Perugia can trace its origin to this period? We certainly are told that the Roman youth were sent here in early days to be instructed in the art of augury.

[5] There is scarcely any trace of the Lombard occupation left in the architecture of Perugia with the exception of the porch over the door of S. Agata, in the Via dei Priori.

[6] The law obliging priests to dress in black was only made after the fourteenth century. In 1203 a certain priest in his will left his clothes to different friends, and among them there was nothing black except his hat. See Cantù, chap. lxiv.

[7] _Lasche_--a small fish corresponding to our dace, and abundant in the Lake of Trasimene. The Perugians were celebrated for their greediness in old days, and their strong affection for this particular fish became a by-word throughout all Italy, and is constantly alluded to in Umbrian chronicles. The tabby cats probably alluded to the emblem of the _Raspanti_: a cat.

[8] Perugia had a close connection with Florence, whom she imitated in many ways. The Florentines were careful to keep upon good terms with Perugia, and many were the embassies exchanged by the two towns. We even hear that, when the Guelph party were exiled from Florence, the Perugians, ever faithful to the Lion of the Guelphs, enabled them to re-enter their city. Yet it must in truth be added, that the two towns had several points of difference, and that they occasionally met on the field of battle as well as in the council chamber.

[9] No cardinal was allowed to enter Perugia's gates before he had arrived at a distinct understanding with the chancellor that he came as friend and well-wisher to the city, and not as legate with powers to infringe on the rights of the citizens.

[10] For an account of his death, see chap. v. p. 143.

[11] _Beccherini_: probably derived from _beccaio_ (butcher) or _beccheria_ (slaughter-house), which place Perugia greatly resembled at times.

[12] See page 149.

[13] Some say that the bull was found reposing in the hands of S. Ercolano's statue, as nobody had courage enough to present it to the citizens.

[14] On all the lower hills and in the plains around Perugia the nobles had their strongholds--great walled citadels of bricks and mortar, like the nests of prehistoric birds. Deruta was one of these, belonging to the Baglioni in early times: Bettona, another (where some descendants of the Baglioni still live in a large red villa). In the Palazzo degli Oddi--Via dei Priori--some well-kept canvasses still show what the nests of the Oddi looked like, and also their position.

[15] Sir John Hawkwood and his English soldiers became a scourge in Umbria at this period.

[16] Pandolfo was the first of the Baglioni who openly attempted to get power in his native town.

[17] His son, Francesco Sforza, was afterwards Duke of Milan.

[18] Paolo Uccello's splendid picture in our National Gallery is always said to represent the battle of S. Egidio. We have however no proof that the youth with yellow hair is indeed, as hitherto reported, a portrait of Galeazzo Malatesta.

[19] It was believed by some that Braccio's success depended on a kindly spirit imprisoned in a crystal who gave him good council, and brought him luck.

[20] A poet of Aquila, Ciunillo, points to a more tragic cause of Braccio's death. We are given to understand that young Francesco Sforza (the son of Braccio's great rival Attendolo Sforza, who had met his death a few months previously whilst crossing the river Pescara on his way to relieve Aquila) gave the surgeon's arm a slight nudge as he was cleaning the wound, and drove the sharp instrument straight into Braccio's brain. Nothing that we know of Francesco Sforza's character (he was afterwards Duke of Milan) would lead us to suppose him capable of such a deed.

[21] Date of his birth uncertain (1386?).

[22] While Alexander VI., the Borgia Pope, was staying at Perugia in the summer of 1495, he made an effort to rid the Church of the whole Baglioni family at one stroke, but to gather at once all its members into his net required some diplomacy. With Borgia cunning he called to him Guido, the head of the clan, and expressed a great desire to see, during his stay in the city, a joust or tournament, politely implying that if organised by the illustrious house of Baglioni it must surely be a magnificent success. Guido, as shrewd and crafty as any of his family, replied that he was ready to do anything to gratify the Pope, and that he could think of nothing more likely to be acceptable and pleasing to His Holiness than to see the people of Perugia fully armed and equipped for battle, with the _condottieri_ of the Baglioni house and their retainers ready for instant combat. Guido's covert threat was taken with a smile, but very soon afterwards Alexander left for Rome, and spoke no more of tournaments.

[23] The well-known scholar, Francesco Matarazzo, was born at Perugia in 1443, studied there, married, and died there in 1518. It has been doubted whether he really was the author of the marvellous chronicle of the deeds of the Baglioni, but there is nothing to disprove this; the dates coincide, and the chronicle is always included in the list of his life-works.

[24] The Baglioni are rarely mentioned without the title of _Magnifico_ being added to their name. "I Magnifici Baglioni" exclaimed a Perugian of the present day, "_I Magnifici Birbanti_" (The magnificent scoundrels) were for them a fitter title!

[25] See John Addington Symonds, "Sketches in Italy."

[26] "Both the one and the other appeared to be like two angels of Paradise."

[27] Two lions had been given to Gianpaolo and Astorre by the Florentines in recognition of services rendered for them against the Pisans. A third was kept by Grifonetto.

[28] "Unhappy Astorre, dying like a poltroon."

[29] "Have no fear, Gismondo, my brother."

[30] "Simonetto might have lived," sighs Matarazzo, "but his great courage killed him, for he scorned to flee." "Indomitusque Simon" had been written of him, and as the citizens drew near to look the last on these young brothers, they told each other that even now, struck down by so cruel a fate, Simonetto appeared still unvanquished and untamed.

[31] "Now my time is come." Matarazzo tells us that Guido was a fatalist ("era homo che credeva al destenato sempre," p. 118).

[32] "Here his lordship received upon his noble person so many wounds that he stretched his graceful limbs upon the earth."

[33] The scholar, Francesco Matarazzo, went, as a matter of fact, to Greece in his youth in order to copy passages from the Greek classics. It is therefore possible that he acquired his love of the human form actually in Hellas.

[34] "Everything," he says, "seemed darkened and full of tears; all the servants wept, and the doors and the rooms, and every house of the other members of the Baglioni were all like the palls of the dead. And throughout the city there was no soul who played or sang; and few there were who smiled."

[35] See Archivio Storico, vol. xvi. part ii. page 437.

[36] John Addington Symonds' "Sketches in Italy," p. 83.

[37] John Addington Symonds, "Life of Michelangelo," vol. i. p. 184-185.

[38] The name is still common in Perugia and owned by some of the best families in the place, and the splendid villas near Bettona, Torgiano, and Bastia are all inhabited by people of the mighty name of Baglioni.

[39] By the treaty concluded with Martin V. (1424) after Fortebraccio's death, Perugia was absolved from every tax not in force during the time of Boniface IX., and Paul had accepted this treaty on his accession.

[40] The place where this great crucifix stood (the cross itself is hidden by a window) can still be seen on the south side of the Duomo, and every night a lamp is burned above it in commemoration of that fantastic ceremony. How little probably does the _custode_, who strikes the match, guess for what purpose he does so. No doubt he imagines that he is lighting up to make the street below more clear for passers-by.

[41] This immense and extraordinary building has been fully described in another place (see chap. vi.). Plate, p. 77, and map will explain how powerful was the position that it held, and how well calculated it was to strike terror into the minds of the citizens. But according to one authority the Latin inscription quoted above was never written on its walls.

[42] See "Archivio Storico Italiano," vol. xvi., part ii. p. 443.

[43] The topographical position of Perugia distinguished her in very early times. "It is believed," says Mariotti, "that the _Via Cassia_, which led from Rome to Chiusi, passed by Perugia, or rather the _Via Vajentana_, which was one of the ancient military roads passing through Tuscany. Other writers have placed Perugia on the _Via Aurelia_. She had beside the principal military roads, several others which served her for communication with the neighbouring Etruscan cities, and it is most likely that modern roads leading to Chiusi, Orvieto, Gubbio, &c., preserve many parts of the old roads."--_See Mariotti_, vol. i. p. 9.

[44] Even after the Perugians had ceased to fight among themselves, their unhappy churches and palaces were battered about. "That wind of the desert," says Bonazzi, "that simoom of Pontifical dominion did not pass over our city in vain." Paul III., in building his fortress, did infinite damage to the south of the old town; and the work of destruction, as far as the gems of painting go, was completed by Napoleon Bonaparte, whose raids among the masterpieces of Perugia were quite imperial in their extravagance.

[45] Bonazzi says that the present Via Vecchia was one of the very earliest of the streets, and that people have tramped up and down it for at least twenty-five hundred years.

[46] One historian says that there were as many as a hundred towers, but the more prudent Mariotti will only allow of forty-two. Only one or two remain, yet in old days they, like the city walls, were most carefully preserved, and it appears that Sextus IV. "fulminated excommunications and fined by a fine of fifty ducats any person who dared to pull down a tower." Of those which remain the Torre degli Scirri at Porta Susanna is the most conspicuous. The bell tower of the Palazzo Pubblico is another; and in many of the streets one can trace their mutilated trunks between the house walls.

[47] These graceful arches have been almost everywhere bricked up and replaced by square window posts, perhaps because it was easier to fit glass into a square than into an arch. In Gubbio and some of the smaller Umbrian towns the arched window has in many houses been left untouched.

[48] In old days the Perugians actually kept a caged lion in their public palace, so Ciatti was probably quite correct as far as this first statement is concerned.

[49] Ciatti was neither fair nor true to the women of the town. The Madonnas of Bonfigli and Perugino disprove his testimony in the sixteenth century even as our own eyes contradict it in the nineteenth. We have only to go to mass in S. Lorenzo to realise the simple grace of the young Umbrian peasant girls, and in some of her palaces we may have the happiness of seeing some of the fairest women, and certainly the most elegant, of modern Italy.

[50] This square is one of the most charming points in the city. In old days it was a very disreputable and untidy suburban square or thoroughfare. The last witch burned in Perugia was burned in this place. All the refuse of the city was cast out upon it. In this way, and upheld by the first Etruscan wall, an artificial space of flat land was procured which the houses to the east of the piazza now occupy, but these were always threatened by destruction as the soil below them was constantly giving way, and one of Fortebraccio's great works was the bolstering up of these houses with strong arches and walls from below. The reason of the name of the square is that its pavement actually covers the Etruscan wall. It is a beautiful and picturesque place, full of fine detail. The buildings of the old University (1483) have almost an echo of Oxford in their square window frames; the palace of the _Capitano del Popolo_ has a grand door in pietra serena with the figure of Justice carved above it.

[51] It is difficult to reconstruct these earlier buildings, which have almost entirely vanished with time and different fires, but they lay more to the west of the piazza, and formed a fine group, with a great flight of steps leading up to them from the square. The church of the Maestà delle Volte belonged to them; also the exquisite little arch which is left standing alone at the head of the Via del Verzaro. For an accurate idea of the first plan of the buildings in the piazza it would be well to look at a picture in the Pinacoteca, which hangs in the small room out of the _Sala di Mariotto_.

[52] All the emblematic heraldry of the city may be followed on this big doorway. The three patron saints of the city, S. Ercolano (Herculanus), S. Costanzo, and S. Louis of Toulouse stand in the centre. The last of these was the son of Charles II. of Naples, and a great grandson of Louis IX. of France. The Perugians, who were always strong Guelphs, chose him as their patron saint when Robert I. King of Naples, and brother of Louis, took arms against the Ghibellines at Genoa. S. Louis was also the particular patron of the Palace of the _Priori_. The two lions who support the pillars of the doorway are symbols of the Guelph cause.

[53] It is said that Fiorenzo painted this fresco to commemorate the fact that he had been himself a _Priore_ in 1472.

[54] We would point out that, as far as prisons are concerned, the nineteenth century has certainly improved in cleanliness and decency upon its predecessors. We visited the dungeons in the _Via della Gabbia_, one bitter winter afternoon, and left them shuddering. The following day we were taken through the wards of the unromantic modern building which stands--a veritable eyesore to the artist--on the southern slope of the city. Civilisation has brought great good in certain things, if not more beauty for humanity. The modern prisons of Perugia are given over to the care of Belgian nuns. There seemed to be a scent of freshest lavender in the long cool rooms where the prisoners sleep and work, and we left them we may almost say with comfort, or, at least, with far happier feelings than those which had saddened us the night before in the gruesome cells of the _Palazzo Pubblico_.

[55] Fra Bevignate was a Sylvestrian monk. Pascoli says that he died in 1350, at the age of ninety-five, in which case he was but a youth when he designed the fountain.

[56] For full account of the fountain, see Mariotti, "Lettere Pittoriche," and Gio. Battista Vermiglioli's admirable work on the subject. The latter is splendidly illustrated.

[57] Some years ago a gentleman of Perugia bought from a grocer in the town for the sum of twenty-five centimes the original drawing of Baroccio's "Deposition." (See No. 9, Gabinetto della Torre, Pinacoteca.)

[58] See model in the Museum of the University.

[59] The stone is probably some rare form of agate. It is transparent and takes many lights; the colour is a faint yellowish blue. The people of the place have strange fancies about its colour. Before we had seen it we asked of others what it looked like. "Ah," answered the small son of the sacristan, "it is white, and it is not white. It has no given colour. It is impossible to describe it, for nothing else is like it." Goldoni, in his memoirs, gives the following description of it:--"The ring with which St Joseph wedded the Virgin Mary is made of a transparent blue stone, and is a circle of some thickness; thus it appeared to me, but they say that the ring changes its colour and form miraculously, according to the various persons who approach it."

[60] A picture capable of working miracles.

[61] To those who only search for art, its picture by Perugino will seem the chief attraction. This is, however, a poor bit of the master's work with many of his later affectations.

[62] This fact is uncertain, and many people ascribe the work to Ducci.

[63] A note to Gregorovius' "Tombs of the Popes" says that Innocent's bones have been carried to Rome by Leo XIII. and buried in S. John Lateran.

[64] See "Lenten Journey in Umbria, 1862."

[65] The word Marzia naturally suggests a temple to Mars, and indeed certain half-legendary records point to the fact that such a temple formerly existed on this same spot.

[66] In Bonfigli's fresco of the siege of Perugia by Totila at the Pinacoteca (see chapter x.), we have an admirable portrait of the square of S. Ercolano, and on one of the house walls, under a small pent roof, there is a minute copy of a fresco: a madonna and saints with angels. It is not at all improbable that this fresco is really the one by Buffalmacco (now destroyed) described in the above passage by Vasari.

[67] This last fact is interesting for several reasons. It shows that even some of the Perugian priests took part against the Pope on this memorable 20th of June. The Benedictine monks at S. Pietro opened their convent to the citizens to use as a fortress on that day, and themselves joined in the fighting. Their loyalty to the city has never been forgotten. When in 1860 all the convents of Perugia were broken up the government spared the monks of S. Pietro. They left the pictures in the church, which was turned into a "national monument"; and they left the monks in their cells with the understanding that when their number should be at last reduced to two the convent with its vast lands was to be turned into an agricultural school, but in no ways to be divided up, sold, or desecrated. Hence the comparatively perfect condition of S. Pietro.

[68] The _Garden of Gethsemane_. The picture has been struck by lightning, and the strong slanting line which crosses it from end to end adds a certain mysterious charm to the group of the sleeping Apostles.

[69] Sometimes called Piazza Danti.

[70] There are many people still living in Perugia who remember the time when those who wanted to converse over a glass of good wine would give each other rendezvous at "Il Papa." In Hawthorne's "Transformation" some of the principal characters keep a tryst under this same statue.

[71] It must, however, be remembered that Julius' policy was only on the surface, and that the yoke of Rome was not by any means lifted from the city.

[72] _Lancie_: stands in old Italian for three horsemen.

[73] There are one or two other points of interest in this square, which are dwarfed, of course, by the splendid Etruscan relic. In the big block of late Renaissance building (Palazzo Galenga) to the left, Goldoni acted as a child, and in the same square the composer, Francesco Morlacchi, was born. Morlacchi was the author of much music, sacred and profane, and the Perugians, who cannot truly be called a musical race, are very proud of, and have named their biggest theatre after him. Morlacchi died in 1841, and the great Requiem which he had composed for the funeral of his patron, Frederic Augustus I. of Saxony, was sung in the Duomo of Perugia, "to obtain eternal peace for the soul of this her valiant son."

[74] The borgo of S. Angelo was always reported in old days to be inhabited by the most wicked people in Perugia, and, indeed, during the turmoils of the centuries the first rumble of revolution and of discord could usually be traced to this quarter.

[75] Perugino seems to have taken a particular pleasure in work of this sort; his designs for the Cambio stalls are a good illustration of the ingenuity he expended on them.

[76] In one of the loveliest of the old houses as one passes down to the left, Madame Alinda Brunamonte lives: a poetess of whose talent Perugia is most justly proud; and a little lower down is the Palazzo degli Oddi with its exquisite copy, said to be by Pinturicchio, of Raphael's Madonna del Libro, and the strange charts of the Oddi palaces upon the plain, decorating its walls.

[77] It is fair to say that many other towns dispute this strange honour with Perugia, and probably with far better claims.

[78] Ducci did other excellent work in Perugia, namely, the gate of S. Pietro, the beautiful altar in S. Domenico, and a Madonna and child which is now in the University Museum, but which was originally made for a niche on the façade of S. Francesco al Prato. It was the Florentine sculptor, too, who is said to have founded the pottery works at Deruta.

[79] See plate.

[80] See poem of "Viola," by Alinda Brunamonte.

[81] See "History of the Papacy during the Reformation," vol. i. p. 146.

[82] In Bonfigli's great _gonfalone_ now at the Pinacoteca, but originally painted for the Oratory of S. Bernardino, we see a meeting of the Confraternities, and an admirable portrait of their chapel and their square.

[83] This _Gonfalone_ is one of the loveliest of the series mentioned on p. 238. Like the one in the Duomo it is covered with a gauze veil, but can easily be seen with a little patient inspection.

[84] Siepi says that he cannot even imagine how old S. Martino is, but he knows that it is built upon the top of the Etruscan wall.

[85] See note p. 229.

[86] The town, like every other small Italian town, has had its complicated and tempestuous history. Its walls, many of which are very early, have suffered siege (see pp. 19, 20); and its hills are honeycombed in places with Etruscan tombs.

[87] It is curious to note that it was Paul III. who ordered Michelangelo's Last Judgment to be painted over Perugino's altar-piece, and that it was also Paul III. who built his fortress on the ruins of the Baglioni palaces at Perugia.

[88] "That stupendous thief Napoleon Bonaparte." This magnificent title was conferred on the dead Emperor by a poor little withered custodian of an Umbrian church.

[89] Since writing the above, we have been shown a very early MS., which shows that Pietro's bones were taken from the ditch by a priest and buried under the walls of his church at Fontignano.

[90] L'Ingegno is a mysterious figure in the school of Perugino. Our National Gallery has a picture signed A. A. P. (ANDREAS ALOYSII PINXIT) which is believed to be an authentic work of his. We have no distinct records of the man, though the pictures ascribed to him are very numerous. The best known of these are at Assisi. His work and his personality are a sort of shadow of Perugino. Vasari felt no sort of doubts about l'Ingegno; indeed he pronounced him to be the best master of Perugino's school, and vying with Raphael in his studio. He also tells us that l'Ingegno's glory was early withered by the curse of blindness; this fact has, however, been disproved by Rumohr, who has made very careful research upon the subject. Whatever l'Ingegno was, or whatever he did, one cannot ignore his existence in a survey of the Umbrian school, and the very fact of the mystery in which he is shrouded attracts and draws one to him.

[91] There is a beautiful bit of his work in the little old church of S. Martino at Perugia. (See p. 215.)

[92] The Cambio is in the same block of buildings as the Palazzo Pubblico, though separated from these by the Via dei Priori. It is the hall in which the members of the Exchange met in old days to settle their affairs. For full account of the history of the Exchange at Perugia, and of its meeting-room, see _Storia Artistica del Cambio di Perugia_--Adamo Rossi.

[93] The pictures of Perugia were formerly stored in the museum of the University. In 1871 they were removed to the top storey of the Palazzo Pubblico, and here, since they may never again return to church or convent, they have found a permanent and fitting home.

[94] Two fine portraits in the Palazzo Baldeschi are attributed to Velasquez, but there is no proof that the Spanish painter really came to paint them. Another beautiful picture--the property of Count Meniconi Braceschi, at Perugia--is attributed to Filippo Lippi, but is more probably the work of Neri di Bicci.

[95] The frieze round the top of the same room clashes hopelessly with the calm pre-Raphaelite figures beneath it. It was painted by Tommaso d'Arcangelo, a pupil of Giulio Romano, and represents some of the events in the life of Braccio Fortebraccio.

[96] There is another picture of exactly the same type in the Church of the Carmine. It has hitherto been given an earlier date than Bonfigli--1130--and it is one of the so-called miraculous Madonnas. We have made careful search, both in the documents of the church and in other books upon the pictures of Perugia, but can get no certain information about it; yet we feel nearly convinced that it is the work of Bonfigli. Some of the _gonfaloni_--those in S. Francesco al Prato and S. Lorenzo--are covered with a thin gauze veil. The one of the Carmine was also thus covered originally, but the veil caught fire and burnt to cinders. Not a flame even so much as touched the faces of our Lady and her angels.

[97] The picture is a curious record of the times. Two excommunicated women kneel in the right hand corner; one of them is huddled in a veil, but the other, fair and soulless as Greek Helen, turns aside and smiles.

[98] The four panels of saints and angels round the Madonna are attributed to Caporali.

[99] In Matarazzo's chronicles of the sixteenth century we find an accurate account of the different costumes worn by the nobles of Perugia (see p. 99). It has been suggested to us by a learned gentleman of Perugia, that Fiorenzo was simply copying the costumes of his period, and that in his group of young men in the miracles of S. Bernardino he did but portray the most important actors of the day, whose armorial bearings were shown in their apparel, namely, the "most magnificent gentlemen, Oddi and Baglioni."

[100] The hole it filled may still be seen in No. 16, Room XIII., but the big picture is torn from its frame and its place filled up with a good bit of Eusebio's work.

[101] Eusebio was a favourite pupil of Perugino. There is something pathetic in his life. Men seemed better friends to him than fortune. Pinturicchio loved him and took him with him to Siena to help him with his work there. He was a great friend of Manni, too, and a passionate admirer of Raphael, whose work he imitated. When very young he married a beautiful girl of Perugia whom he loved deeply. By her he had many children and his life became a struggle to support them, so that he was often hampered and distracted in his work and died early and in misery.

[102] That Perugia had great Raphaels not very long ago everyone knows. The exquisite Madonna del Libro is now in S. Petersburg, and the British nation paid a memorable sum for the Ansidei Madonna which used to hang in S. Fiorenzo.

[103] It will perhaps be objected by some readers that the above pages contain too few facts and dates about the painters of the Umbrian school and the manner in which they were influenced by the Florentines. For these, we add the following list of authorities whose works contain full store of information on the subject:

Crowe & Cavalcaselle--_History of Painting in Italy_, vol. iii.

Alinda Brunamonti--_Pietro Perugino e l'Arte Umbra._

Angelo Lupatelli--_Storia della Pittura in Perugia_ and _Pinacoteca Vannucci_.

Bernhard Berenson--_The Central Painters of the Renaissance._

[104] The Museum is kept in the upper story of the University at Perugia, and a delightful street, or rather aqueduct, called the Via Appia, leads down to it from the back of the Canonica.

[105] At first these collections were kept in their owners' private palaces, later on they sold or gave them to their native town. Early in this century the objects thus collected were moved from their original home in the Palazzo Pubblico, and placed in the corridors and upper storey of the university. Thanks to the indefatigable care and energy of such men as Vermiglioli and Conestabile, who devoted their lives to the study, explanation, and history of these relics, we now have a splendid answer to many of our questions, both in the carefully arranged collection of the University and in the books concerning them.

[106] In our quotation from M. Lefèvre's work (see p. 268) we find what is at least a very plausible explanation of this dearth of their language.

[107] Send a card through Madame Brufani, Grand Hotel, or through the custodes at the University Museum.

[108] The discovery was a great point for students, and everybody will be glad to hear that the unconscious discoverer did not suffer through it, but lived to plough the surface of the land, the caverns of which antiquarians from distant countries hurried at once to investigate.

[109] For a full description of the Tomb of the Volumnii, see Gio. Battista Vermiglioli's work: _Il Sepolcro dei Volumni_. Vermiglioli has made the most elaborate investigations, and transcribes the inscription on the door post thus:

Arnth: larth: Velimna: Aruneal: Thvsiur: Svthi: avil: thece:

which he translates after infinite labour, to mean roughly Aruns Lars Volumnius (son of) Arunia or Aronia dedicated (the monument, and ordered) the annual sacrifices.

Vermiglioli has also traced the origins of the Volumnian family who, it seems, were well known in the Roman times, and constantly mentioned by the Roman writers. One of the Volumnii is known to have been the writer of tragedies (these were probably written in Latin). There was an Etruscan divinity called Volumnus or Volumna. The family was important throughout Etruria. It may have started in Perugia certainly its chief necropolis seems to have been here.

[110] The group of sarcophagi in this chamber has apparently never been touched.

[111] The sarcophagi do not belong to the early period of Etruscan art, but to the times of the Roman occupation 200 or 300 B.C.

[112] The Medusa was used by the Etruscans as a sort of spell to keep off evil influences and bad people from their dead. The dead, it seems, never left their graves but hovered always round the place where their ashes were preserved.

[113] In 1155 Frederick Barbarossa besieged Gubbio, but the Bishop of the city--Ubaldo--pleaded in such passionate terms for her deliverance, that the Emperor renounced the siege. Since then the holy Bishop is worshipped with almost barbaric rites in the city. On his feast-day (May 15) his image, and those of the two other patron Saints of the town, are carried in a weird and almost horrible procession from midday until night-fall through the streets. They are mounted on immense candelabra--_ceri_--of extraordinary shape, and weighing each several tons. The young men of the town, dressed in white shirts and trousers and coloured caps, and staggering, half mad with wine and weariness, bear them upon their shoulders at a half trot. At nightfall they make a final rush with these Umbrian juggernauts up the mountain side to the chapel of the Saint, and there the _ceri_ remain in peace for the remainder of the year, till fetched for the same barbaric performance the following May. For a full and most interesting account of this ceremony we must refer the reader to Mr Bower's delightful book on the "Ceri of Gubbio."

[114] Ottaviano Nelli, born sometime towards the end of the fourteenth century, son of Martino Nelli and a native of Gubbio. He was one of the very earliest masters of the Umbrian school of painting, following close and copying without ambition the work of the Sienese. The fresco in S. Maria Nuova at Gubbio is considered his masterpiece. It strives towards beautiful colouring and sentiment rather than correct drawing.

[115] Spello was at one time a Roman colony. The Roman gate _Porta Veneris_ is well preserved. A little to the left of the town, outside its present walls, are the remains of its old theatre. The town is also connected with the mythical history of Orlando, and a long inscription on the walls records the facts minutely.

[116] _Albergo della Posta_--a really admirable inn.

[117] Melanzio, the delightful painter of Montefalco, had noted this blue-green light of spring, he had caught it in his very soul, and put it back into his landscapes, into his Virgin's gown, yes, and even into the shadows on the faces of his saints. "Fourth-rate" a critic called him, but we, who have no wish or power to criticise, loved him for the harmony which we found between his native landscape and his pictures.

[118] This airy old church has been converted into the Pinacoteca of Montefalco. It is one of the few local picture galleries which ever really pleased us. The pictures and frescoes taken from their altars in the neighbouring churches have found a home and not a prison on its wide walls; their dignity and sentiment have not been taken from them in the change of their position.

[119] There are one or two pictures by Lo Spagna in Trevi, the best one in the church of the Lagrime, to the south of the town.

[120] There is considerable doubt felt nowadays as to whether the exquisite little temple once dedicated to the river god Clitumnus which we now see standing above the river, is really the same as that early one described by Pliny. The work on it is certainly very late Roman, if, indeed, it be Roman at all: the emblems are, many of them, purely those of Christian art. But as the temple was turned into a Christian chapel (dedicated to S. Salvadore), it may, perhaps, be that its detail was altered to suit the altered creed. However these things be, the tiny building remains one of the most charming and romantic points in Umbria--one of the sweetest tributes that man's mind ever paid to the spirits of Nature. Before leaving the spot one should walk on to the place below the road, where the river springs straight from the foot of the hills--a limpid stream, rising almost invisibly through the grass and trees which overshadow its mysterious source.

[121] Spoleto, like nearly every other important Umbrian city, was at one time a Roman colony (512). Later she and Benevento were the first of the Italian cities to form themselves into duchies under the Lombards; and the dukes of Spoleto form an important point in Umbrian history, as at one time they ruled over the whole of Umbria. (Later, as we have seen, Perugia got the ascendency.) Spoleto was Ghibelline in spirit, made incessant wars with neighbouring towns which favoured the Pope, and quarrelled constantly with the popes themselves. The extraordinary position of the town, serving, so to speak, as an inland harbour off the Flaminian Way, exposed her to constant attacks from passing hordes and armies, and one of the most dramatic points in her early history is that of the repulse of Hannibal: "Alone, in the midst of universal dismay, the youthful colony of Spoleto lost not its courage," says a local historian, "and after a period of less than twenty-four years from its foundation made its name illustrious, by associating it with one of the most memorable events of antiquity." By resisting the army of the African, Spoleto, of course, was of great assistance to Rome, as the repulse was the first solid check in his advance.

[122] Albergo Luccini, a rambling old palace belonging in old days to a Cardinal, and now to Signor Luccini. An interesting inn, which should be better known and more frequented. Its landlord has made a beautiful collection of the old furniture, pottery, etc. of the neighbourhood, and the vast rooms of his house are filled with these fine things. We can imagine no more fascinating abode for any person bitten with a love of history and (alas for its landlord) solitude.

[123] _Albergo dell' Angelo_, a thoroughly delightful house, clean, well-kept, miraculously cheap, and hospitable, with airy rooms (no luxuries), and one of the most surprising views in Umbria.

[124] The history of Narni is full of one long conflict with Trevi.

[125] The Duomo is almost perfect still, and dates from the thirteenth century. A beautiful basilica, with unspoiled columns, a fine pulpit, and one or two good pictures.

[126] The cathedral was begun at the end of the thirteenth century. Nicholas IV. laid the first stone in 1290. It was built to commemorate a miracle which happened to a priest at Bolsena (near Orvieto), who, disbelieving in the sacraments, beheld them turned to actual flesh and blood. The napkin with the blood stains is kept in a marvellously beautiful shrine in the Duomo--a thing of rare and exquisite workmanship in silver and enamels.

[127] The popes were always flying from Rome to Orvieto for safety. Thirty-two of them are recorded to have stayed in the town.

[128] The road from Chiusi to Città della Pieve is marvellously beautiful, winding up through one of those virgin forests of oaks which still are scattered through various tracts of central Italy.

[129] It must be remembered that the only wealth of these hill-set Umbrian cities, or rather the only source of life, comes from the fields outside them. There is no commerce or manufacturing of any sort in a town like Città della Pieve.

[130] _Descent from the Cross_ by Perugino. A door was at one time driven through the fresco, thus exactly cutting away the principal figure--that of our Saviour. The picture has been spoilt in other ways; but it is full of Pietro's graceful sentiment, and the group of the Marys at the foot of the cross is one of the most touching things that we remember of the Master.

[131] See _Pélérinages Ombriens_, p. 265. M. Broussole had been staying at Città della Pieve, and, carried away by the excessive charm of the place, he revolted a little from the learned dissertations of a local historian, and broke into the sentiments which we quote above.

* * * * *

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

John Addington Symond's "Sketches in Italy,"=> John Addington Symonds' "Sketches in Italy," {pg 68 fn 36}

Pietro Vanucci=> Pietro Vannucci {pg x 4}

d'ou toute la vallée se découvre=> d'où toute la vallée se découvre {pg 82}

the tops of their sarcophag=> the tops of their sarcophagi {pg 274}

C'est l'Appenin, avec ses bandes de contre-forts=> C'est l'Apennin, avec ses bandes de contre-forts {pg 290}

CONVENT of S. Guiliana, 100.=> CONVENT of S. Giuliana, 100. {pg 320}