SPELLO
In the beginning of 1501 Pintoricchio left Perugia and went off to
Spello, the little town eighteen miles to the south of it. Here the
prior of the chapel of the college, Troilo Baglioni, a son of the
proudest house in Perugia, had lately been created a bishop; and,
naturally enough, when he wished to decorate his cathedral, he sent for
the painter of his native city, who had by now made himself so famous a
name. This little chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore at Spello is dark and
damp enough, but in its decay it is still possible to divine something
of its whilom beauty. As Pintoricchio planned his designs for it, we can
see that his mind was still running on the rich work he had left in Rome
two years before, and again and again he has adapted ideas from the
Borgia Apartments, suiting them, with his own delicate judgment, to the
smaller position and to the provincial situation. So cleverly has he
managed, that the narrow chapel gains air and space and outlook, and
even in its dim ruin we have an instant sense of life going on all round
us. He has here used the airy architectural surroundings which he had so
happily dwelt upon in the Buffalini Chapel, with the result that his
work gains greatly in aerial space, it acquires a freshness and a
refinement which is well adapted to the country district in which it is
placed, and we lose that sense, which almost oppresses us amid all the
fascination of the Borgia rooms, of being shut into a succession of
gorgeously-jewelled caskets.
In triangles, formed in the roof by heavy borders of grotesques,
Pintoricchio has placed four sibyls, Erythrean, European, Tiburtine, and
Samian. Each sits in a carved niche, on a throne with raised steps; the
same thrones, on a smaller scale, as those in the chamber of the Arts
and Sciences in Rome. Books, open or clasped, lie about the steps; at
each end of the thrones are erected altars, inscribed with the mystic
sayings of the inspired women. The sibyls themselves, as they read or
write or look upwards in an ecstasy, are much more elaborate in dress
and fashion of hair than the symbolical figures in the Vatican. In
style, they approach more nearly to the sibyls afterwards painted in the
choir of Santa Maria del Popolo, or to the personages in the Library at
Siena.
The three walls of the little side chapel are filled by paintings of the
"Annunciation," the "Nativity," and "Christ disputing with the Doctors."
From the inscription on the "Annunciation," recording the finishing of
the chapel, we gather that the painter began at the opposite side, with
the "Dispute." He places this scene in the courtyard of the temple, a
Bramante-like building of rather clumsy proportions, which fills the
background, and has a niche on either side, with statues of Flora and
Minerva. The group in the foreground suggests that Pintoricchio is still
full of recollections of the "Dispute of St. Catherine," and is
dwelling on the contrast he there emphasised between the fragile
champion and the old philosophers. The Child is checking His arguments
on His fingers in the same way, the doctors press around him in Eastern
caps and turbans. On the extreme left an austere dignitary in dark robe
and biretta can be no other than the bishop, Troilo Baglioni himself.
The books of the learned men are thrown upon the ground, as they listen
to the Child's wisdom. Raphael has used the same incident in his
"Disputà." On the right, Joseph and Mary hurry forward, but she checks
her husband's impatience with her hand upon his girdle; behind Mary are
several women, in whose heads we recognise models used in the "Burial of
St. Bernardino," strong profiles, of which he must have had the sketches
by him.
In the "Nativity," which occupies the inner wall, and which is sadly
ruined by the damp and decay, Pintoricchio shakes off his Roman manner,
and returns to the purely Umbrian style and to the influence of Fiorenzo
di Lorenzo. This must have been one of the most charming of all his
frescoes. The distance stretches away, soft and harmonious, the towers
and spires of the little town of Spello nestle into the blue hillside, a
choir of angels which seems to have been transplanted from a panel of
Fiorenzo's stands upon the clouds above, and at the angels' feet rise
the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, with their branches touching
the sky. The stable is represented by a lofty, classic porch, on the
roof of which sits a peacock, Juno's bird, which Christian tradition had
transferred to Mary, as the Queen of Heaven. Two beams have fallen in
front of it, into the form of a cross. Midway advances the procession of
the kings, winding down a mountain path, and grouped about its foot. All
these serve as background to the sacred group with the shepherds, which
is placed very low down, quite at the edge of the picture. Pintoricchio
has shown a want of proportion between the different figures of his
principal group, but otherwise they are excellent. The Virgin's is one
of his most lovely and delicate faces. Fortunately it is uninjured, and
no print can give adequately its tender beauty, above the rose and blue
and deep green of the gold embroidered draperies. Joseph stands behind,
raising his hands in adoring wonder; behind him, on the ground, lies
such a packsaddle as is still used in Italy. The shepherds--peasants
from the Umbrian hills--kneel in deep devotion, one holds his humble
offering of a basket of eggs. The Child and Mother and the general
arrangement of the landscape recall the little altar-piece in Santa
Maria del Popolo, but the whole effect is much more beautiful, since the
painter has awakened to the realisation of far-reaching space.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_] [_Sta. Maria Maggiore, Spello_
THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS]
The "Annunciation" has the same advantage over the otherwise not
dissimilar one in the Borgia Hall of Mysteries. The angel is almost
identical; the Virgin, standing at her reading-desk and shrinking
backwards, has all the naïve charm of the school of Fiorenzo. The great
Renaissance hall stretches far behind, and beyond the perspective of
stately columns we see a gay little view set in the archway: a scene at
the city gates, wayfarers arriving at the inn outside the walls, a table
with a white cloth spread, a dog jumping up,--Pintoricchio's favourite
greyhound,--horsemen riding on through the gateway, a well, and a woman
coming to draw water. The grotesques upon the pilasters are carefully
drawn, but roughly painted, and the shadows hatched in. It is in this
fresco, under the little _prie-dieu_ at the side, that Pintoricchio has
drawn his own portrait, which almost startles us as we catch the
life-like blink of its eyes, as it looks out from among the
conventionalised saints. A coral rosary and the painter's brushes are
painted below, and the label, BERNARDINO PICTORICUS PERUSINUS. Perugino,
a few miles off, was working at the Hall of Exchange, and one of the
artists evidently took the idea from the other of painting the head in
this way instead of introducing himself after the more usual fashion as
a spectator.
A short distance from the town lies the little church of San Girolamo,
where one is shown as Pintoricchio's a "Sposalizio" and a "Nativity."
The first cannot be his. It is a very poor little fresco, without any
indications even of his influence, and more probably by some obscure
follower of Perugino or Lo Spagna. The arrangement of heads of the group
of maidens standing behind Mary has either been taken from, or suggested
by, that in Raphael's "Sposalizio." In the "Presepio," which is on the
wall of the cloister chapel (which has since been used as an outhouse),
ruined as it is, we are better able to trace the master's hand. The
Madonna's head is adorned with a twisted veil, and a light scarf is
drawn across the breast and arranged in the same way as in the fresco
over the door of the Borgia room (No. III.). The heads are all drawn
with delicacy and decision, and even now we can trace original, sharp,
precise touches. The man behind with the lamb on his shoulders is in
Pintoricchio's simpler and earlier manner--a good sketch straight from
the model. The angels on the clouds kneel stiffly, and the whole gives
the impression of a very early work, which has been copied in some
details for the later "Adoration of the Shepherds" in the Baglioni
Chapel. The landscape, though much destroyed, still retains his
characteristics.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_] [_Sta. Maria Maggiore, Spello_
THE ANNUNCIATION: WITH PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST]
The frescoes at Spoleto have been covered up for some years, as the
chapel of the Duomo in which they are is undergoing restoration. They
are described as ruined representations of a "Madonna and Saints," "God
the Father," and a "Dead Christ." Vasari does not speak of any of the
frescoes at Spello, nor are they noticed by Pascoli and his
contemporaries, while Mariotti and Orsini, in the eighteenth century,
say very little about them--Vermiglioli and Adamo Rossi first give a
full account of them.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_] [_Sta. Maria Maggiore, Spello_
PORTRAIT OF PINTORICCHIO]