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PIETRO PERUGINO (1446-1524)

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 280 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PIETRO See also:

PERUGINO (1446-1524)  , whose correct See also:family name was VANNUCCI, See also:Italian painter, was See also:born in 1446 at Citta della Pieve in See also:Umbria, and belongs to the Umbrian school ofpainting . The name of See also:Perugino came to him from See also:Perugia, the See also:chief See also:city of the neighbourhood . Pietro was one of several See also:children born to Cristoforo Vannucci, a member of a respectable family settled at Citta della Pieve . Though respectable, they seem to have been poor, or else, for some See also:reason or other, to have See also:left Pietro uncared for at the opening of his career . Before he had completed his ninth See also:year the boy was articled to a See also:master, a painter at Perugia . Who this may have been is very uncertain; the painter is spoken of as wholly mediocre, but sympathetic for the See also:great things in his See also:art . Benedetto See also:Bonfigli is generally surmised; if he is rejected as being above mediocrity, either Fiorenzo di Lorenzo or Niccolo da See also:Foligno may possibly have been the See also:man . Pietro painted a little at See also:Arezzo; thence he went to the headquarters of art, See also:Florence, and frequented the famous Brancacci See also:Chapel in the See also:church of the See also:Carmine . It appears to be sufficiently established that he studied in the atelier of See also:Andrea del Verrocchio, where Leonardo de See also:Vinci was also a See also:pupil . He may have learned See also:perspective, in which he particularly excelled for that See also:period of art, from See also:Piero de' See also:Franceschi . The date of this first Florentine sojourn is by no means settled; some authorities incline to make it as See also:early as 1470. while others, with perhaps better reason, postpone it till 1479 . Pietro at this See also:time was extremely poor; he had no See also:bed, but slept on a See also:chest for many months, and, See also:bent upon making his way, resolutely denied himself every creature comfort .

Gradually Perugino See also:

rose into See also:notice, and became famous not only throughout See also:Italy but even beyond . He was one of the earliest Italian painters to practise oil-See also:painting, in which he evinced a See also:depth and smoothness of tint, which elicited much remark; and in perspective he applied the novel See also:rule of two centres of See also:vision . Some of his early See also:works were extensive frescoes for the Ingesati fathers in their See also:convent, which was destroyed not many years afterwards in the course of the See also:siege of Florence; he produced for them also many cartoons, which they executed with brilliant effect in stained See also:glass . Though greedy for gain, his integrity was See also:proof against temptation; and an amusing See also:anecdote has survived of how the See also:prior of the Ingesati doled out to him the costly See also:colour of See also:ultramarine, and how Perugino, constantly washing his brushes, obtained a surreptitious hoard of the pigment, which he finally restored to the prior to shame his stingy suspiciousness . A See also:good specimen of his early See also:style in See also:tempera is the circular picture in the Louvre of the " Virgin and See also:Child enthroned between See also:Saints." Perugino returned from Florence to Perugia, and thence, towards 1483, he went to See also:Rome . The painting of that See also:part of the Sixtine Chapel which is now immortalized by See also:Michelangelo's " Last See also:Judgment " was assigned to him by the See also:pope; he covered it with frescoes of the "See also:Assumption," the " Nativity," and "See also:Moses in the Bulrushes." These works were ruthlessly destroyed to make a space for his successor's more See also:colossal See also:genius, but other works by Perugino still remain in the Sixtine Chapel; " Moses and Zipporah " (often attributed to See also:Signorelli), the " See also:Baptism of See also:Christ," and " Christ giving the Keys to See also:Peter." See also:Pinturicchio accompanied the greater Umbrian to Rome, and was made his partner, receiving a third of the profits; he may probably have done some of the Zipporah subject . Pietro, now aged See also:forty, must have left Rome after the completion of the Sixtine paintings in 1486, and in the autumn of that year he was in Florence . Here he figures by no means advantageously in a criminal See also:court . In See also:July 1487 he and another Perugian painter named Aulista di Angelo were convicted, on their own See also:confession, of having in See also:December waylaid with staves some one (the name does not appear) in the See also:street near S . Pietro See also:Maggiore . Perugino limited himself, in intention, to See also:assault and See also:battery, but Aulista had made up his mind for See also:murder . The See also:minor and more illustrious See also:culprit was fined ten See also:gold florins, and the See also:major one exiled for See also:life .

Between 1486 and 1499 Perugino resided chiefly in Florence, making one See also:

journey to Rome and several to Perugia . He was in many other parts of Italy from time to time . He had a See also:regular See also:shop in Florence, received a great number of commissions, and continued developing his practice as an oil-painter, his See also:system of superposed layers of colour being essentially the same as that of the See also:Van Eycks . One of his most celebrated pictures, the " Pieta " in the Pitti See also:Gallery, belongs to the year 1495 . From about 1498 he became increasingly keen after See also:money, frequently repeating his See also:groups from picture to picture, and leaving much of his See also:work to journeymen . In 1499 the gild of the cambio (money-changers or bankers) of Perugia asked him to undertake the decoration of their See also:audience-See also:hall, and he accepted the invitation . This extensive See also:scheme of work, which may have been finished within the year 1500, comprised the painting of the vault with the seven See also:planets and the signs of the See also:zodiac (Perugino doing the designs and his pupils most probably the executive work) and the See also:representation on the walls of two sacred subjects—the " Nativity " and " Transfiguration " —the Eternal See also:Father, the four virtues of See also:Justice, Prudence, See also:Temperance and Fortitude, See also:Cato as the See also:emblem of See also:wisdom, and (in life See also:size) numerous figures of classic worthies, prophets and sibyls . On the See also:mid-See also:pilaster of the hall Perugino placed his own portrait in bust-See also:form . It is probable that See also:Raphael, who in boyhood, towards 1496, had been placed by his uncles under the tuition of Perugino, See also:bore a See also:hand in the work of the vaulting . It may have been about this time (though some accounts date the event a few years later) that Vannucci married a See also:young and beautiful wife, the See also:object of his fond See also:affection; he loved to see her handsomely dressed, and would often See also:deck her out with his own hands . He was made one of the priors of Perugia in 1501 . While Perugino, though by no means stationary or unprogressive as an executive artist, was working contentedly upon the old lines and carrying out the See also:ancient conceptions, a mighty See also:wave of new art flooded Florence with its See also:rush and Italy with its rumour .

Phoenix-squares

Michelangelo, twenty-five years of See also:

age in 15oo, following after and distancing Leonardo da Vinci, was opening men's eyes and minds to possibilities of achievement as yet unsurmised . Vannucci in Perugia heard Buonarroti bruited abroad, and was impatient to see with his own eyes what the stir was all about . In 1504 he allowed his apprentices and assistants to disperse, and returned to Florence . Though not openly detracting, he viewed with See also:jealousy and some grudging the advances made by Michelangelo; and Michelangelo on his part replied, with the intolerance which pertains to superiority, to the faint praise or covert dispraise of his See also:senior and junior in the art . On one occasion, in See also:company, he told Perugino to his See also:face that he was " a bungler in art " (go fo nell' ante) . Vannucci brought, with equal_ indiscretion and See also:ill success, an See also:action for See also:defamation of See also:character . Put on his mettle by this mortifying transaction, he determined to show what he could do, and he produced the chef-d'oeuvre of the Madonna and Saints " for the Certosa of See also:Pavia . The constituent parts of this See also:noble work have now been sundered . The only portion which remains in the Certosa is a. figure of See also:God the Father with See also:cherubim . An " See also:Annunciation " has disappeared from cognisance; three compartments—the Virgin adoring the See also:infant Christ, St See also:Michael, and St Raphael with Tobias—are among the choicer treasures of the See also:National Gallery, See also:London . The current See also:story that Raphael bore a hand in the work is not likely to be true . This was succeeded in 15os by an " Assumption," in the Cappella dei Rabatta, in the church of the Servi in Florence .

The painting may have been executed chiefly by a pupil, and was at any See also:

rate a failure: it was much decried; Perugino lost his scholars; and towards 1506 he once more and finally abandoned Florence, going to Perugia, and thence in a year or two to Rome . Pope See also:Julius II. had summoned Perugino to paint the See also:Stanza in the Vatican, now called that of the Incendio del Borgo; but he soon preferred a younger competitor, that very Raphael who had been trained by the aged master of Perugia; and Vannucci, after painting the See also:ceiling with figures of God the Father in different glories, in five medallion-subjects, found his occupation gone; he retired from Rome, and was once more in Perugia from 1512 . Among his latest works one of the best is the extensive See also:altar-piece (painted between 1512 and 1517) of S . See also:Agostino in Perugia; the component parts of it are now dispersed in various galleries . Perugino's last frescoes were painted for the monastery of S . Agnese in Perugia, and in 1522 for the church of See also:Castello di Fortignano hard by . Both See also:series have disappeared from their places, the second being now in the See also:Victoria and See also:Albert Museum . He was still at Fontignano in 1524 when the See also:plague See also:broke out, and he died . He was buried in unconsecrated ground in a See also:field, the precise spot now unknown . The reason for so obscure and unwonted a mode of See also:burial has been discussed, and religious See also:scepticism on the, painter's own part has been assigned as the cause; the fact, however, appears to be that, on the sudden and widespread outbreak of the plague, the panic-struck See also:local authorities ordained that all victims of the disorder should be at once interred without any waiting for religious See also:rites . This leads us to speak of Perugino's opinions on See also:religion . See also:Vasari is our chief, but not our See also:sole, authority for saying that Vannucci had very little religion, and was an open and obdurate disbeliever in the See also:immortality of the soul .

For a reader of the See also:

present See also:day it is easier than it was for Vasari to suppose that Perugino may have been a materialist, and yet just as good and laudable a man as his orthodox See also:Catholic neighbours or See also:brother-artists; still there is a strong discrepancy between the quality of his art, in which all is throughout See also:Christian, Catholic, devotional, and even pietistic, and the character of an See also:anti-Christian contemner of the See also:doctrine of immortality . It is difficult to reconcile this discrepancy, and certainly not a little difficult also to suppose that Vasari was totally mistaken in his assertion; he was born twenty years before Perugino's See also:death, and must have talked with scores of See also:people to whom the Umbrian painter had been well known . We have to remark that Perugino in 1494 painted his own portrait, now in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, and into this he introduced a See also:scroll lettered " Timete Deum." That an open disbeliever should inscribe himself with " Timete Deum " seems See also:odd . The portrait in question shows a plump face, with small dark eyes, a See also:short but well-cut See also:nose, and See also:sens:lous lips; the See also:neck is thick, the See also:hair bushy and frizzled, and the See also:general See also:air imposing . The later portrait in the Cambio of Perugia shows the same face with traces of added years . Perugino died possessed of considerable See also:property, leaving three sons . Among the very numerous works of Perugino a few not already named require mention . Towards 1496 he painted the Crucifixion," in S . Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, Florence . The attribution to him of the picture of the See also:marriage of See also:Joseph and the Virgin See also:Mary (the " Sposalizio ") now in the museum of See also:Caen, which served indisputably as the See also:original, to a great extent, of the still more famous " Sposalizio" which was painted by Raphael in 1504, and which forms a leading attraction of the Brera Gallery in See also:Milan, is now questioned, and it is assigned to Lo See also:Spagna . A vastly finer work of Perugino's is the " See also:Ascension of Christ," which, painted a littler earlier for S . Pietro of Perugia, has for years past been in the museum of See also:Lyons; the other portions of the same altar-piece are dispersed in other galleries .

In the chapel of the Disciplinati of Citta della Pieve is an " See also:

Adoration of the Magi," a square of 21 ft. containing about See also:thirty life-sized figures; this was executed, with scarcely credible celerity, from the 1st to the 25th of See also:March (or thereabouts) in 1505, and must no doubt be in great part the work of Vannucci's pupils . In 1507, when the master's work had for years been in a course of decline and his performances were generally weak, he produced. nevertheless, one of his best pictures—the " Virgin between St See also:Jerome and St See also:Francis," now in the Palazzo Penna . In S . Onofrio of Florence is a much lauded and much-debated See also:fresco of the " Last Supper," a careful and blandly correct but not inspired work; it has been ascribed to Perugino by some connoisseurs, by others to Raphael; it may more probably be by some different pupil of the Umbrian master . See also:AUT'110RITIES.—In addition to See also:Crowe and Cavalcaselle, see Di Pietro Perugino e degli scolari (1804) ; Mezzanotte, Vita, &c., di Pietro Vannucci (1836) ; Mariotti, Lettere pittoriche Perugine (1788); See also:Claude See also:Phillips (in The See also:Portfolio) (1893) ; G . C . See also:Williamson, Perugino (1900 and 1903) . , (W . M .

End of Article: PIETRO PERUGINO (1446-1524)
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