_Fortress of Paul III.--S. Ercolano--S. Domenico--S. Pietro--S.
Costanzo_
From an historical point of view the crowning interest of the buildings
of Perugia was to be found in the great fortress which Paul III. built
in the middle of the sixteenth century in order to amaze the citizens,
and to subjugate the rebellious passions of the nobles. For three
centuries this huge building performed its office admirably and Perugia
lay silent and subdued under the oppressive shadow of its walls. But no
sooner did other influences appear, no sooner did the imperial French
power open a way to a freer method of government than that allowed by
Rome, than Perugia shook herself free of a yoke which had been odious
from the first, and on the 23rd December 1848, in the sight of a great
crowd of people, and with a pomp and ceremony dear to the Perugians from
the very darkest ages of their history, the first stones of the splendid
building were torn from their places. By a strange coincidence or,
perhaps, agreement, the man to give the first blow was a certain
Benedetto Baglioni, and as he let the hammer fall it split the
cornerstone on the very spot where the palaces of his ancestors had
stood in former years! The masons followed suit, and soon the bricks and
stones were tumbling from their places. The whole town joined in the
work of devastation, but so splendid was the mortar used by the
builders of the indomitable Paul that at times nothing but blasting
would destroy the masonry. In one of the great explosions several people
were killed, "and thus," says Bonazzi, "did the Farnese Pope once more
avenge himself on us, even after a period of three hundred and eight
years!"
No sooner was the Papal fortress gone than the Perugians began to make
new buildings on its site. All the modern architecture of the town has
sprung, like fresh mushrooms spring, on the site of the old wood, and it
is not easy in the present day to reconstruct Paul's mighty citadel,
hampered as our vision is by the open squares and houses which now have
taken possession of its site. It was divided into two parts. The top
part covered nearly the whole of the level space which the Prefetura,
the Hotel Brufani, and the Piazza Emanuele now occupy. The fire of the
Pope's guns could therefore be turned on recalcitrant citizens or
nobles, either up the Corso and the Piazza Sopramuro, or down the main
approach to the city from the road to Rome. A strong branch or buttress
of the fort ran down from this high level to a second fort which, in the
shape of a fan, extended itself along the level ground which is now
occupied by municipal buildings and the Piazza d'Armi; a large part of
the lower building was devoted to a great walled square for games,
called the Piazza del Pallone.
Adolphus Trollope was one of the last people to see and to describe the
great Farnese citadel. He saw it both before and during its destruction,
and the description which he gives of the building and of the hatred
which it excited is so vivid that we quote it here at length.[64]
"Few buildings," he says, "have been laden with a heavier amount of
long-accumulated popular hatred than this; and few have more richly
merited it. The Perugians were for many ages--nay, it may pretty
well be said that they never ceased to be--a hard nut for the
grinding teeth of papal tyranny to crack, and this huge Bastille
was, at the time of its erection, a symbol of the final destruction
of liberty in Perugia.
"When I had last been in Perugia the entire building was open to
the curiosity and free examination of the public. There was no
crowd when I wandered over the labyrinths of its stairs and
passages, guard-rooms, barracks, casemates, and prisons of every
sort and size. I had the foul place then all to myself, with the
exception of a few workmen, who were beginning to take the roof off
one of the upper buildings; for the public of Perugia had already
satiated their curiosity. I saw the large dungeons, accessible only
by a circular opening in the pavement of the less dreadful dungeons
above them; I saw the fearful cells, constructed in the thickness
of the colossal masonry, in such devilish sort, that the wretches
who had dared to question the deeds of Christ's Vicar on earth,
once introduced into the cavity through apertures barely sufficient
to admit a crawling figure, could neither stand nor sit in them. I
paced the lofty battlements, which commanded such a panoramic view
as can hardly be matched, over the beautiful country and the many
cities within its circuit, all priest-trampled and poisoned; and I
marked the narrow light-holes in some of the less dreadful prisons,
through which a miserable, tantalising strip of far distant sunlit
horizon was dimly visible to the immured victim, who knew too well,
that he should never, never return to the light of day."
On Trollope's second visit, that is to say, in 1862, the work of
demolition was progressing, and an inscription had been placed on the
wall of the piazza fronting the former main entrance to the fortress,
which struck him as ironically satirical in its simplicity. It stated
that the magistrates of Perugia were removing the fortress raised for
the oppression of the citizens "_for the improvement of the prospect
from the Piazza_"! Some time later Trollope returned to Perugia. The
fortress was then being quickly pulled to pieces.
"There were a number of people," he says, "on the occasion of my
second visit gloating over the progressing destruction of the
detested walls, as crowbar and pickaxe did their work. I saw one
remarkable looking old man, with a long flowing white beard,
sitting on a fallen fragment of wall in the sunshine, and never
taking his eyes from the workmen who were tumbling down the great
masses of concrete as fast as their excessive hardness would permit
of their being detached. A gentleman I was with noticed the
direction of my look, and said: 'That old man comes here at break
of day, and remains till the workmen knock off at night. He was
many years a prisoner in the fortress, and was liberated at the
fall of the Papal Government.'
"I felt that his presence there was fully accounted for, and that I
could guess without any difficulty 'of what was the old man
thinking?' as he watched the demolition of his prison home."
But however great the damage done both to the people and their buildings
by the fortress of the great Farnese, it must be admitted that the Pope
at least employed a man of taste to carry out his vast designs. In
building the new walls and knocking down the old, San Gallo left
unharmed some of the finer characteristics of the city. He pulled down
all the Baglioni strongholds, he battered down ten churches, and as many
as four hundred houses--indeed, he destroyed a little corner of the
mediæval town--but he preserved, with a tender carefulness, the church
of the patron saint, S. Ercolano, and one of the first Etruscan gates:
the Porta Marzia. As it was not possible to keep the latter in the form
of a city gate San Gallo used it as a decoration, building it into the
west wall of the fortress where, as Dennis rightly says, it still
remains, "imprisoned in the brickwork, to be liberated by the shot of
the next besiegers of Perugia, and looking as much out of place as an
ancient Etruscan himself would look in the streets of the modern city."
The Porta Marzia is surmounted by the usual frieze of short pillars, but
the statues of four mysterious persons are inserted in the niches. A
tradition in Perugia says that these statues are the portraits of a
Perugian family who died from eating a large quantity of poisonous
_funghi_ (mushrooms). How this myth originated it is not possible to
say, but the figures with their inscrutable history add a phantom touch
to the already phantom portal. They are probably Roman divinities.[65]
It is worth getting the doors of the Porta Marzia opened to see the
funny world inside: a whole small town of battered streets, even the
fragments of a chapel, and many house-walls still intact.
[Illustration: PORTA MARZIA]
S. ERCOLANO.
The church of S. Ercolano is built straight against a part of the first
Etruscan walls on the spot where the saint is supposed to have been
decapitated by Totila. It is a strange little church, octagonal and very
tall and narrow. The first church is said to have been built as early as
1200 and out of the remains of an old amphitheatre, or, as some say, the
temple to Mars, which originally stood on the site. Its early history
is, however, somewhat hazy. In 1600 the church was finally rebuilt by
Bishop Comitoli, who at once looked about him for some suitable tomb in
which to place the body of S. Ercolano, which had hitherto had such a
very unquiet history. It happened that just at that time a splendid
sarcophagus was dug up under the little chapel of S. Orfito at the foot
of Monte Pacciano. Six skulls and a wooden cross, together with certain
legends connected with some early Christian martyrs and a chapel in the
woods, seemed to prove that the sarcophagus had formerly held their
"holy bones." The pious bishop Comitoli very reasonably concluded that
"Heaven was ministering to his need," so he took the sarcophagus and put
it on the altar of his new church, and in it he laid the body of the
saint. The translation of the body from its old abode in the Duomo was
marked by a magnificent ceremony. The Bishop got up into the pulpit in
the square, which had never been used since the days of S. Bernardino,
and thence preached a sermon on the merits of their patron Saint to the
people of Perugia, who came in thousands to attend him.
S. Ercolano, who is purely a local saint like S. Costanzo, plays an
important part in the history of Perugia; he may, indeed, be called the
presiding genius of the city. His history is often confused with that of
a most obscure and highly mythical person
[Illustration: CHURCH OF S. ERCOLANO AND ARCHWAY IN THE ETRUSCAN WALL]
of the same name who was martyred at Perugia in very early days and
devoured by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The shining point in the
life of the second S. Ercolano is the part that he played in the defence
of his city during the siege of Totila. This has endeared him to the
hearts of the citizens, and his name is as familiar to the street boys
of Perugia as that of S. Ubaldo to the children of Gubbio. Unlike the
saint of Gubbio, however, S. Ercolano failed in his diplomacy.
Barbarossa listened to the prayers of Ubaldo and departed from Gubbio;
Totila took Perugia and beheaded its Bishop, and the Gothic soldiers cut
off his head on a ledge of the Etruscan walls where the present church
now stands to commemorate his martyrdom.
All sorts of strange ceremonies and religious festivities grew up round
the worship of this beloved saint, for the Perugians were as religious
as they were warlike, and they delighted in pious displays. Indeed, one
old proverb describes the _credo_ of the city as consisting of three
P's: _Processione_, _Persecuzione_, _Protezione_. There were countless
rules and regulations concerning the processions of the various saints.
Some had a double procession, or one which extended itself over two
days. On the first of these, the procession started from the house of
the Saint and proceeded to the Duomo, and on the second the order was
reversed. In the case of S. Ercolano his statue was carried on the first
day from his house with a wooden head upon its shoulders. On the second
day it returned to its abode with a silver head in commemoration of his
martyrdom. So when anybody in Perugia lied or was deceitful, he was
described as having two faces like the blessed Ercolano!
In Monaci's collection of the Uffizi Dramatici dei Disciplinati dell'
Umbria we find many of the great tragic songs or plays sung by the
Flagellants of Perugia, and some of the finest of these are addressed
to S. Ercolano, who, as we have said, exercised a peculiar influence
over the minds and consciences of the Perugians. The outside world made
great sport of this almost infantine side to the character of the
Perugians, and on one occasion the Florentine painter, Buffalmacco, made
use of it in combination with their other worship, namely, their love of
fishes, to play a rather hazardous practical joke upon them. Vasari
recounts the history at length:--
"Now the Perugians," he says, "gave Buffalmacco an order to paint
in the Piazza of S. Ercolano a portrait of that saint, who is the
patron and was the bishop of their city. The price being arranged,
a scaffolding of wood covered with matting was put up for him in
order that none might watch him at his painting; and this being
done he set to work upon it. But ten days had not passed by before
everyone who happened to walk that way began to ask when the
picture would be finished, as though such things as this could be
cast in a mould, and at last the thing became a nuisance to
Buffalmacco. Therefore, having finished his work and being wearied
of so much importunity, he decided within himself to be quietly
avenged on the impatience of these people, and he succeeded; for
the work being finished, he showed it to them before uncovering it,
and they expressed themselves absolutely satisfied. But when the
Perugians expressed their desire at once to pull down the
scaffolding, Buffalmacco told them to let it stand for another two
days because he desired it to retouch certain points for his own
satisfaction, and thus it was settled. Then Buffalmacco went back
to that spot where round the head of his saint he had painted a
large golden aureole, and as was the custom in those times, with a
high relief of plaster he made him a crown, or more properly
speaking, a garland, and wound it round and round his head, and all
of _lasche_. And this being done he one day paid his landlord and
returned to Florence. Then as the days passed by, and the Perugians
failed to see the painter moving about as was his custom, they
asked the landlord what might have become of him, and hearing that
he had returned to Florence, they immediately hurried to uncover
the picture, and finding their saint crowned only with a wreath of
fishes, they immediately carried the news to the governor of their
city and then, with hottest haste, sent horsemen in pursuit of
Buffalmacco; but in vain, for he had returned to Florence with the
best speed he might. Therefore they decided to have the crown of
fishes removed from the head of the saint and the aureole replaced
by one of their own painters, and in future to speak as much evil
as they could, both of Buffalmacco himself and of the Florentines
in general."[66]
The story of Buffalmacco, the saint, and the crown of fishes is comic
enough, but the square in which the scene described above was acted
witnessed the deepest human tragedy that the annals of Perugia have
preserved for us. It was just outside the church of S. Ercolano that
Grifonetto Baglioni got his death-wound. Driven back from Porta S.
Pietro with only a few men, he prepared to keep the gate of "Sancto
Ercolano" and there, hopeless of anything save death, he awaited the
assault of Gianpaolo. It was here in this place that he fell. Did
Raphael come down the street along with the other terror-stricken people
after the fight was over? Did he, with the quiet eyes of the artist,
look on this passionate scene of love and death? Was it Grifonetto that
he painted later in his picture--"Grifonetto gracious in his person." We
cannot tell; we only know as a fact that the "Entombment," now in the
Borghese villa at Rome, was ordered by Atalanta Baglioni, and in a
letter from Raphael concerning it we see that he was acquainted with her
personally. It has been suggested to us by a Perugian who is wise in art
and history, that Raphael painted a portrait of Grifonetto not in the
figure of Christ as one might naturally suppose, but in the more
prominent figure of the vigorous young man who supports the feet of the
dead Saviour. The whole attitude of this figure is one of dauntless
energy and courage such as one would expect to see in the son of two
such cousins as Atalanta and Grifone Baglioni.
* * * * *
From the steps of S. Ercolano one of the only broad and comparatively
even streets of the town--the Corso Cavour--leads to the main road
through the Porta Romana, down the steep hill to the Tiber and across
the plain to join the road to Rome. Most of the history of Perugia has
come and gone along this road; it was here that the popes made their
triumphal entries, here probably that the barbarians forced a passage,
and here, even in our own days, that Perugia suffered a final and a
painful siege from Rome. It was on the of 20th of June 1859 that the
Swiss guard fought its way along it, burning down the houses and beating
back as they advanced the ill-organised body of inhabitants. Strange
thrilling details of that day have been told to us by people who were
present. One inhabitant, a mere boy then, was up with his parents at the
top of their house in the Corso Cavour, but smelling smoke in the shop
below they crept downstairs to see what might be happening, and found
the Pope's guard foraging amongst their medicine bottles. The mother and
boy fled back up the stairs, but the father was caught and carried out
into the street to be shot. Then the small boy leaned from the window,
covering his face with a scarf, and pleaded so passionately for his
father's life that the Swiss soldiers spared him and passed to more
profitable pursuits further up in the town. (We hear that they were
filled with so great a lust for blood that they even wrung the neck of a
tame falcon in the Piazza Sopramuro!) Another gentleman who had come in
with the Pope's guard gave us some details of the siege, and amongst
them he told us of a certain priest at S. Pietro, who, thinking to kill
the leader of the troops, shot at the drum-major, whose magnificent
appearance would no doubt make him remarkable to a quiet monk. The
unfortunate priest was shot for his pains up in the square on the
following morning.[67]
The Corso Cavour has a very modern look about it. Most of its big
buildings are used as barracks, but some few of the old are left. The
Palazzo Bracceschi has a fine old outside staircase and a good
collection of pictures, amongst them an exquisite Madonna and child
attributed to Filippo Lippi, but more like a Neri di Bicci, also some
fine original drawings.
S. DOMENICO.
The gigantic church of S. Domenico towers above the street to the left.
It is one of those desolate unfinished Gothic buildings which one finds
so often in Italian cities--a great idea dwarfed, not by want of
inspiration, but by the need of money to complete it. The church as we
now see it is merely a patchwork of the first architect's original
conception. It was begun early in the fourteenth century from designs
by Giovanni Pisano, but it was not finished till 1459. The building owed
much of its splendour to a young man of Perugia, Cristiano Armanni, who,
whilst studying at Bologna, had been converted to the faith by the
preaching of S. Domenico. Cristiano returned from the university in the
society of a certain S. Niccolò of Calabria, and induced his parents and
his friends to give him money for the new church which was about to be
built to honour S. Domenico. The magistrates of Perugia contributed a
banner to the cause, and they decided that wherever S. Niccolò might
place this banner, there the new church should be built. He planted it
near the church of S. Stefano, and on that site the present church of S.
Domenico now stands. Through the fault of inferior masons, part of the
choir and the middle nave fell through in 1614, but Bishop Comitoli
determined to rebuild it on the original design. He spent more than 4000
_scudi_ on this generous act and was as ill-rewarded as the most patient
builder of card-castles ever was, for the whole of his work collapsed
for the second time. It was finally rebuilt on the designs of Carlo
Maderno, in 1632. But all this tinkering has left very sorry scars, and
even the tower outside has not been spared. It was begun later than the
rest of the church and was not finished till about the end of the
fourteenth century, when Paul III. at once had the top of it knocked off
because he declared that the monks of S. Domenico could, from their
campanile, look down and spy upon the building of his fortress!
One or two relics alone remain of the many beautiful bits of art with
which the church was rich in early days. Of these the tomb of Pope
Benedict XI. is the most fascinating.
Of the life of Benedict there is not much to say; his reign covered a
period of only eight months, and perhaps his greatest glory is in his
tomb. He was a native of Treviso and belonged to the Dominican order. In
1304 he, like other popes and tired people, came to Perugia in search of
the peace he could not find in Rome, and there, in that same year, he
died. When in Perugia his mother came to see him--a thing which had only
once happened to a pope before.
"Moved by a desire to see her son," says Mariotti, "Filomarina came
to Perugia, and here having had herself nobly dressed by the people
of Perugia, as befitted the mother of the Pope, she presented
herself to her son. But he, seeing her so beautifully clad,
pretended that he did not know her, saying that this was not his
mother, because _she_ was a poor old woman and not a lady like this
one. And his mother hearing this thing, and being a good and holy
woman, took off those rich adornments, and putting on her own
again, she returned to the Pope, who recognising her as his mother,
received her with all tenderness."
Pope Benedict was anxious to make peace between the Bianchi and Neri of
Florence, and received from some of the heads of the Guelph factions a
visit of state in his residence at Perugia. Twelve of them, headed by
Corso Donato, came with all their suite behind them: one hundred and
fifty horses we hear, and many friends and relatives. No satisfactory
agreement was arranged, and shortly afterwards this holy but powerless
Pope passed into his rest.
It was supposed that Benedict died of poison, and the older stories run,
like the modern one of Zola, on the subject of a basket of poisoned
figs.
"In the year of Christ 1304, on the 27th of the month of June,"
says Villani, "Pope Benedict died in the city of Perugia, and it
was said that he died of poison. As the Pope sat eating at his
table a young man came to him dressed and veiled in the guise of a
woman, and as a servant of S. Petronilla, with a basin of silver in
which were many beautiful figs and flowers which he presented to
the Pope in the name of the faithful Abbess of the convent. The
Pope received the figs with very great delight, and because he
loved them, he made no enquiry concerning them, seeing moreover
that they came from a woman, and he ate a great quantity, whereupon
he immediately fell ill, and after a few days he died, and was
buried with great honours by the Preaching Friars who belonged to
the Dominican order at Perugia. Benedict was a good and an honest
man, but it is said that because of the envy of certain of his
cardinals, they had him poisoned in this fashion."
[Illustration: DETAIL OF THE TOMB OF POPE BENEDICT XI. IN THE CHURCH OF
S. DOMENICO]
Some say that Benedict was poisoned because of the ill-feeling of the
Florentines towards him, and others that he died by the jealous hand of
Philippe le Bel of France. The historians of the present day deny the
fact of poison at all. Be these matters as they may, the fact of the
dead pope's tomb remains--an entrancing bit of human workmanship. It was
made by Giovanni Pisano, son of the great Niccola, "who first breathed
life, with the breath of genius, into the dead forms of plastic art."
Pope Benedict lies asleep; stretched out quite flat and thin in his
exquisitely folded robes; there is a canopy over him with curtains
strung across it and two angels have drawn the curtain back to gaze at
the figure of the dead man. The columns of the tomb were filled up once
with precious mosaics, but during Napoleon's occupation of Perugia, a
regiment of men and horse were quartered in the church of S. Domenico,
and the French soldiers are said to have employed their leisure hours in
picking out these treasures with their pen-knives. Perhaps it was these
same thoughtless beings who wilfully mutilated the exquisite figures of
children, fragments of which are still left clinging to the spiral
curves.
The terra-cotta decorations in the chapel of the Rosario are the work of
Agostino Ducci--the Florentine sculptor who made the lovely front of S.
Bernardino, (see chapter viii.), and they would be interesting if only
for that reason. Though mutilated in parts, and spoilt by careless
white-wash, much of the detail is still charming; notably the three
little angels over the central arch. As for the rest of the church it
has but little interest now-a-days. The immense Gothic window of the
choir is said to be the largest in Italy, but the original glass is
entirely gone from its frame. The whole has been carefully restored by
Signor Moretti of Perugia. The stalls are covered with good intarsia
work, but they have been greatly spoiled by careless restoration, and
have a naked and forsaken look about them. S. Domenico is one of those
pathetic buildings which leave upon one's mind the feeling of arrested
decay, and one hurries gladly from it and out into the sunlight of the
street.
S. PIETRO.
Very different in every way is the church of S. Pietro, which one
reaches after passing through the gate of Porta Romana. "The Basilica of
S. Pietro is so adorned with beauties," says its faithful, but perhaps
too fond, biographer, "that it would suffer and be overburdened were
others added to it." The praise is certainly high, but it has a certain
grain of truth, and the church of S. Pietro, is, amongst the churches of
Perugia, a jewel of inestimable price, for unlike all the others it has
been left with all its treasures and its pictures in it (see note, p.
163).
The church and monastery of S. Pietro are built on the hill of Capraio
or Calvary, which stretches away to the south of the town. They form the
first object which catches the eye as one approaches the city on the
line from Rome; they serve as a sure landmark from many distant points
of Umbria, and one cannot stay long in the city without becoming
sincerely attached to the beautiful group of pale brick buildings,
crowned by their graceful campanile, which catch the sunrise and the
sunset lights, and fascinate one's fancy at every time and season.
It is difficult to decide the date of the first church of S. Pietro.
Tradition says that it is built on the site of an old Etruscan temple,
and that it was the first Christian building of Perugia, certainly it
was the first cathedral. We hear that the earliest Christians of Perugia
used to meet in subterranean passages under the present church of S.
Costanzo, which stands on the same spur of hill as that of S. Pietro,
and that there S. Costanzo, the second Bishop of Perugia, gathered his
little flock together to "feed them with the milk of the holy word of
God." We know that the present basilica was built by a certain Abbot,
Pietro Vincioli, a monk of the Benedictine order, who lived in the tenth
century, and was a great friend of the Emperor Otto III. Bonazzi gives a
delightful description of this Abbot and of his method of building and
the miracles he employed for the purpose. It seems that Pietro was
famous for his great sanctity and learning, and that he lived at a time
when everybody imagined that the world was about to come to an end:
"He had rich friends, the Emperor among them, and the latter, who
entertained the general superstition about the end of the world,
gave him a great deal of money, with which the Abbot determined to
build for himself the present church of S. Pietro. The Pope, the
Emperor, and many other persons showered down donations and
privileges for the purpose, and the new Benedictine monastery soon
became celebrated, and its monks took an active and important part
in the affairs of Perugia.... Although S. Pietro was of a somewhat
surly temper," continues Bonazzi, "he had the gift of miracles, and
once when the Tiber was in heavy flood, and a mill belonging to the
convent was threatened with destruction, the saint caused the
waters to subside. On another occasion during the building of S.
Pietro, the ropes which were raising one of the columns snapped in
two, and the Saint caused the column to remain suspended in mid air
until new ropes were brought, so that nobody was hurt. This
particular column is the second on the left as you enter.... It is
impossible to imagine," Bonazzi continues, "how great was the
sensation caused by these miracles, and for the time being, nobody
thought any more about the end of the world--perhaps they hoped
that our Saint had exorcised that, as well as the lesser
catastrophes."
Just as the Abbot had built his church in 963--a beautiful bare
basilica, with colonnades, and naked raftered roof--so she remained till
well down into the fifteenth century, waiting, as it were, for the
raiment of the Renaissance to clothe her with fresh glories. Then
gradually, first by the roofing of the ceiling, then by pictures,
chapels, the enlargement of the sacristy and choir, and such things of
rare and exquisite beauty as the stalls and the altar-piece of Perugino,
S. Pietro grew into a thing of marvellous taste and finish. But it was
an evil day in which some person ruined the original façade by adding
the courtyard and the cloisters. In old times the campanile stood free
of the church, and the front of the church had strange figures and
frescoes on it, parts of which can still be seen by penetrating a dark
passage under the bell-tower at the back of the little sacristy. (See
Bonfigli's fresco, p. 243.)
The history of the campanile of S. Pietro is a study in itself. This
most lovely and unfortunate tower was for ever suffering at the hands of
man or else the elements. Its chronicler is unable to discover the date
of its first erection, but he tells us that it was probably built on the
site of an old Etruscan tomb, which even now forms its basement. The
earliest written record of the campanile is dated 1347, at which time we
are told that it was so elegant, and so very richly adorned, that an
early historian thought it to be the "loveliest in Tuscany," yet a
certain war-like Abbot, Fra Guidalotti, a man "who rather inclined to
the affairs of war than the discipline of religion, with a view maybe to
convert his campanile into a fortress, that it might thus better serve
his war-like spirit," began to claw it down. He got as far as the first
obelisk, and in his evil operations he tumbled down the metal statue of
the Saint which once adorned the summit. The engaging work of the Abbot
was taken up and continued by Pope Boniface IX., who, in 1393, spent 180
florins in turning the gracious tower into a strong fortress! In 1468
the campanile was rebuilt by the monks at the great cost of 4000
florins, but some years later it was struck by lightning and much
injured. "From this point onward," writes its historian, "the history of
the tower can only be traced through one continuous series of repairs,
which injury from lightning necessitated." These injuries were of such a
sort and so continuous that finally the building showed signs of
approaching ruin. Iron clamps were added, but the lightning continued
to attack it. At last someone had the wisdom to put up lightning
conductors, since when the tower is safe, and one of the loveliest
points in the landscape is secured for us.
A door festooned with splendid garlands of fruit, carved deep in creamy
marbles, leads from the courtyard into the church. The interior is
heavily decorated, but though some of the pictures are far from good,
the impression given by the whole is beautiful and pleasing; and the
choir, which was added in 1400, is one of the loveliest things of its
kind in Italy. The columns of the nave are some of the remains of the
only pagan temple which was left in Perugia after the siege of Augustus
(see S. Angelo, chapter vii.). With the exception of Perugino's great
altar-piece, S. Pietro has preserved nearly all the pictures which were
painted for it. Amongst these is a good _Pietà_ by Perugino (perhaps one
of the panels out of the big picture at S. Agostino). There are three
large canvases by Vasari in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament, a painting
by Eusebio di S. Giorgio of the Adoration of the Magi on the wall
outside and a picture by Guido Reni in the chapel of the
Annunciation.[68] At the end of the left transept is a _Pietà_ by
Bonfigli. "Cette Piété incorrecte et pieuse," as M. Broussole describes
it. The picture hangs in a bad light between the Vibi chapel and the
door, and at first only the white naked figure of Christ shines out on
the dark blue gown of the virgin; but looking a little longer we find
ourselves in the study of S. Jerome: one of those enchanting rooms which
this particular saint inevitably inhabits, neat and exquisite in the
arrangement of its benches and its lectern. Our Lady of Pity is sitting
there, holding the dead figure of her son and kissing his head upon her
shoulder. To her right is a figure of S. Leonard, to the left, and
wholly unconscious of the tragedy, S. Jerome sits, smiling a little
slyly. There is beautiful intarsia work (older than that in the choir)
on the walls of the sacristy, and some fine illuminated books; lower
down the church in the right transept, a beautiful bit of work by
Salimbene of Siena, and on the last wall a fine picture of the school of
Perugino, very rich and bright in colour. The two Alfanis have left
ample specimens of their art in S. Pietro, and there are several of
Sassoferrato's copies of great masterpieces. But the greatest treasure
of the church, like those of S. Lorenzo and S. Agostino, did not escape
the terrible eye of Napoleon Bonaparte. Perugino's great Assumption,
which formed the glory of the high altar, is gone to France. Only six of
the saints, battered and cut from their frames, linger like unhappy
ghosts on the walls of the sacristy.
The altar in the chapel of the Vibi and Baglioni families is a lovely
bit of Mino da Fiesole's work. Vasari accuses this sweet-souled sculptor
of a lack of originality--of a desire to copy the sentiment of his
master (Desiderio da Settignano) rather than to draw straight for
himself from the sources of nature. Be this as it may in the case of
Mino's portraits of people, those of his flowers in this particular
piece of work are strangely realistic. We think he must himself have
gathered and bound the garlands which hang from the narrow frieze, and
in doing so he took for models the sharpest and the prickliest fruits
and leaves of autumn: hazel nuts and tiny fir cones, their points just
tipped with gold. The halos, too, on the angels' heads, their wings, and
the details of the architecture are all picked out with gold. White,
clean, and flat and fair is Mino's altar-piece in the Baglioni chapel.
How different from the blood-stained hands and hearts of those same men
who came to tell their beads here and be buried.
Long after other details in the church have been forgotten, its choir
will remain a haunting vision of excessive beauty. Every inch of it is
worked with exquisite care and finish, for the monks spared no pains or
money, either in its construction or its decoration. Although a piece of
the purest Renaissance fancy, it does not clash with the lines of the
older basilica, and the two little pulpits of pietra serena, with their
rich gilding, the organ lofts and the rather rococo frescoes on the
ceiling, seem only to harmonise the meeting of the different styles of
building. Raphael is said to have designed the stalls, but there is no
sort of document to prove this. "Because our choir is the work of a
genius, it does not follow that that genius should be Raphael ... genius
is not the possession of one sole person," pleads M. Cassinese. Raphael
died in 1520, the present stalls were not finished till 1535, and they
are probably almost entirely the work of Stefano da Bergamo and the men
and boys whom the Bergamasque employed. Some few may be of an earlier
date, for we know that the choir was begun in 1524, and that the work
was interrupted by the same terrible pestilence as that which killed
Perugino. In 1532, Stefano da Bergamo undertook the work of the choir.
He worked steadily, and the monks of S. Pietro kept the most accurate
account of what they paid him, and of how many measures of flour and
pence they gave the men and boys whom he employed. Little is known of
the life of Stefano da Bergamo; we do not even know from whom he learned
his art, but M. Cassinese rightly concludes that he drew his inspiration
from the divine Raphael, since his designs are purely Raphaelesque. The
carving is unequal, and some of the stalls are infinitely lovelier than
others. Note the ninth on the right of the choir: a mother and three
children encircled by a heavy garland of fruit and flowers, and under
them a child, with flying hair, playing with snakes. Note, too, the
extraordinary rows of mythical beasts which lie upon the arms of the
lower row of stalls; catch them in perspective one evening in the
dusk--they will give you food for most fantastic dreaming. What minds,
half childlike and half mad, these early carvers had!
The doors of the choir are the work of Fra Damiano of Bergamo. They are
intarsia work, and show a most delightful fancy. They have unfortunately
been much polished and restored; still what a jewel this panel is, which
is said to represent the finding of Moses! Compare the banks of the Nile
with this palace and this pleasaunce of the purest Renaissance. Its
bulrushes are turned to pergolas, its pyramids to a maze of pillars and
of marble terraces, and there is a bear in the foreground eating honey,
a crane, a rabbit, a long-eared goat, and other beasts of singular
delight. It is strange to think of Fra Damiano sitting in his rooms at
Bologna and preparing these same decorative panels for a place which,
maybe, he had never seen. Above the doors is a fresco attributed to
Giannicola Manni(?), and when the doors open you step out straight upon
a little balcony, and down below lies the Umbrian plain, without a break
of building, and straight in front of you Assisi lies upon its broad,
calm hillside.
The work for the stalls of S. Pietro was finished, it seems, in 1535,
but the pieces were not put together till 1591. In that year, on the 4th
of August, a native architect undertook to put the carvings in their
places. He worked so steadily that on Christmas Eve of that same year,
"at the first vespers of the feast, the choir was solemnly inaugurated
in a musical mass sung by the friars."
What a picture we have--the dull light of the candles on the winter
morning and the monks singing together, in the midst of all their
beautiful new woodwork!
A curious incident is told in connection with the choir of S. Pietro and
three citizens of Perugia. When on the 20th of June 1859, the papal
troops entered Perugia, a detachment of them were quartered in the
church and monastery of S. Pietro, after the town had been seized, and
three gentlemen of Perugia who had been fighting for her liberty at the
gates found themselves cut off from the town and surrounded by the Swiss
guard, who, however, were not conscious of their presence, in the
monastery of S. Pietro. It will be remembered that the monks of S.
Pietro, on this occasion, sided with the citizens, and one of them, Fra
Santo, hustled the three gentlemen up into a little cupboard in the
organ-loft where he kept them concealed for three whole days, feeding
them, as best he could, with a little bread and water. One other
gentleman, who was concealed in another part of the church, managed to
escape under cover of certain dust-pans belonging to the friars, with
which he passed himself off on the guard at the gates as a sacristan.
Either he, or someone else, let the cat out of the bag about the
gentlemen in the organ, and a most diligent search was set on foot.
However, the little cupboard escaped notice for the time, and on the
morning of the fourth day of their confinement, whilst the Papal guard
were getting their pay, Fra Santo and another monk took from the stalls
the ropes which they had cut from their bells on the preceding evening,
and tying these to the balcony of the choir, they hastily let out the
three gentlemen from the organ, who clambered down the ropes, and waving
adieu to their benefactors, scampered off as quickly as they could
across the open country. Five hours later the Pope's guard went up into
the organ, but even then they failed to discover the cupboard whence
their enemies had so lately flown!
When, some time later, the monks of S. Pietro went to Rome to beg the
Pope's pardon for the part they had played against him in the siege of
Perugia, the heaviest blame fell, of course, on Fra Santo; but his
Holiness with extreme good sense thus put an end to the question: "If
Fra Santo has done what you tell me he has, God has willed that he
should do so, and we must ever respect the will of God."
There are one or two lovely bits of della Robbia work in the refectory
of the monastery, a fresco by Tiberio d'Assisi(?) in the chapel, and a
fine well in one of the cloisters. The garden, too, is very charming,
but it is not easy to get permission to wander in these pleasant places
where popes and monks and men of learning spent such pleasant and such
profitable hours. The place is now occupied by students as the whole
convent was turned last year (1896) into a great agricultural college.
(See Note, p. 163.)
S. COSTANZO.
A little lower down the hill is the small church dedicated to S.
Costanzo. For some obscure reason this saint, who is purely local, has
become the patron saint of lovers, and on his feast day all the lovers
of the neighbourhood assemble at the shrine. If the eye of S. Costanzo
blinks at the young man or the girl who kneel before his image, they
feel a happy certainty that the course of their affection will run
smooth, and that the year will end in happy union.
S. Costanzo was converted to the Christian faith by S. Ercolano I., whom
he succeeded as bishop of Perugia, and Ciatti gives us a long list of
his virtues and his miracles. The blind of the city received their
sight from him, we hear, and the lame were made to walk. But all his
miracles and his conversions made him an object of hatred to the pagans,
and one day he was seized together with his followers, and thrown into
prison. They were then put into scalding baths, "but," says Ciatti, "the
Holy Ghost, who filled their souls with fire, tempered the external
heat, and they sang hymns to signify their great tranquillity." Their
only discomfort lay in the darkness all around them, but soon "a
wonderful brightness appeared unto them from heaven which comforted them
exceedingly." Then the pagans continued their tortures and forced the
Saint to walk on burning embers, but as these did him no harm he was
stripped and covered with red hot coals; and all the time he went on
singing much to the annoyance of his tormentors. Finally he and his
followers made their escape and fled to Spello, where fresh conversions,
followed by fresh tortures, are recounted. At last, in 154 A.D., he met
his death at Spoleto. His body was taken back to Perugia by a certain
Serviano da Foligno, who found it "surrounded by a choir of rejoicing
angels, and in a shroud of heavenly light. The holy burden was too heavy
for Serviano to carry alone, and he called on two men who were passing
by to help him. At first they refused and scoffed at the miracles he
related, whereupon they were both struck blind, and trembling, they
prayed for mercy to the God of the Christians. On touching the body of
the Saint they received their sight, whereat they gladly helped to carry
it into Perugia. They entered by Porta S. Pietro, and were met by many
of the faithful." The body of S. Costanzo is buried in the little church
outside the Porta S. Pietro, rebuilt by the present Pope, and the
beautiful byzantine doorway seems a fit entrance to the tomb of this
suffering and much tormented martyr of Perugia.