"More allied to the Tuscan than to the Venetian spirit, the
Umbrian masters produced a style of genuine originality. The
cities of the Central Apennines owed their specific quality
of religious fervour to the influences emanating from Assisi,
the headquarters of the _cultus_ of St. Francis. This pietism,
nowhere else so paramount, except for a short period in Siena,
constitutes the individuality of Umbria" (J. A. SYMONDS:
_Renaissance in Italy_, iii. 133).
Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth
The Urbinate...
Well, I can fancy how he did it all,
Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
Above and through his art....
BROWNING: _Andrea del Sarto_.
The Umbrian School, unlike the Florentine, was distinctively
provincial; painting was not centralised in any great capital, but
flourished in small towns and retired valleys--in Perugia, Foligno,
Borgo S. Sepolcro, S. Severino, Rimini (see 2118), etc. Hence the
older traditions of Italian art held their ground, and the religious
feeling of the Middle Ages survived long after it had elsewhere been
superseded. This tendency was confirmed by the spirit of the district.
The little townships of Umbria begirdle the Hill of Assisi, the
hallowed abode of St. Francis, and were the peculiar seats of religious
enthusiasm. Art followed the current of life, just as it did in
Florence or Venice or Padua; and Umbria--"the Galilee," as it has been
called, "of Italy"--thus produced a distinct type in painting, marked
by a quality of sentimental pietism. The influence of Siena, whose
artists worked at Perugia, must have made in the same direction, and it
is interesting to notice in this room one picture of St. Catherine of
Siena (249), and two of her namesake of Alexandria (693, 168). It is
interesting, further, to notice how the "purist" style of landscape,
identified with this pietistic art (see under 288), is characteristic
of the district itself. "Whoever visits the hill-town of Perugia will
be struck," says Morelli, "with two things: the fine, lovely voices
of the women, and the view that opens before the enraptured eye, over
the whole valley, from the spot where the old castle stood of yore. On
your left, perched on a projecting hill that leans against the bare
sunburnt down, lies Assisi, the birthplace of S. Francis, where first
his fiery soul was kindled to enthusiasm, where his sister Clara led
a pious life, and finally found her grave. Lower down, the eye can
still reach Spello and its neighbouring Foligno, while the range of
hills, on whose ridge Montefalco looks out from the midst of its gray
olives, closes the charming picture. This is the gracious nook of
earth, the smiling landscape, in which Pietro Perugino loves to place
his chaste, God-fraught Madonnas, and which in his pictures, like soft
music, heightens the mood awakened in us by his martyrs pining after
Paradise" (_German Galleries_, p. 252). "All is wrought," says another
writer, "into a quietude and harmony that seem eternal. This is one
of the mysterious charms in the Holy Families of Raffaelle and of the
early painters before him: the faces of the Madonnas are beyond the
discomposure of passion, and their very draperies betoken an Elysian
atmosphere which wind never blew" (_Letters of Edward FitzGerald_, i.
45). Such were the local circumstances of the art which, beginning with
the almost grotesque pietism of Niccolò da Foligno (1107), led up to
the "purist ideal" of Perugino and to the first manner of Raphael.
The scattered character of Umbrian art above referred to makes it
impossible for us to trace its course historically. From that point of
view each of the local schools would have to be treated separately. Of
the local schools which were the earliest to develop--Gubbio, Fabriano,
and S. Severine--the first two are not represented here at all, and the
third has only one picture (249). The taste for art amongst the people
of Perugia was much later in developing itself. Even up to 1440 they
had to rely on Sienese artists; and later still they sent for Piero
della Francesca, of Borgo S. Sepolcro, who had studied at Florence and
had greatly advanced the science of perspective. Many of the Umbrian
masters--Melozzo, Palmezzano, Fra Carnovale, Giovanni Santi, and even
perhaps Perugino, were pupils of his. The earliest native artist of
Perugia in the gallery is Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (1103), who, however,
owed much to the Florentine Benozzo Gozzoli. This Fiorenzo was probably
the master of Pinturicchio. The latter worked for some time under
Perugino, who had studied under Piero della Francesca and afterwards
himself went to study in Florence. Perugino in his turn was the
master, after Timoteo Viti, of Raphael. The development of Raphael's
art, leading in its later periods to directions far removed from the
Umbrian ideal, is traced under the biographical notice of that master
(1171). We have thus completed the circle of the principal Umbrian
masters. They are allied, as it will have been seen, by teaching, to
the Florentines, but they retained a distinctive character throughout.
The one exception in this respect is Luca Signorelli, who, though he
was apprenticed to Piero della Francesca, was born nearer to Florence,
and whose affinities are far more with the Florentine than with the
Umbrian School.
[Illustration]