THE LIBRARY AT SIENA
Dr. Steinmann suggests, with great probability, that we may fix March as
the month of Pintoricchio's return to Siena in 1506, for in that month
he took into his employ the Perugian painter, Eusebio di San Giorgio.
This, no doubt, marks a fresh start, and the master now worked steadily
on until the Library was completed.
There is little that is devotional in character about the Libreria in
Siena. As the visitor passes the bronze doors, past the marble columns
of pagan sculpture and Renaissance copy, he loses all sense of being in
part of a sacred building. The chamber itself is singularly destitute of
the ordinary objects of religious art. No Divine Persons, no
evangelists, saints, or fathers--not an angel in the whole range of
subjects. We have here one of those examples of historic fresco which
were a feature common to fifteenth-century art, a popular way of
decorating the living-halls of great seigneurs, such as the Palaces at
Urbino and Mantua, or the Palazzo Schifanoia at Ferrara.
We are expressly told that Pintoricchio was given the life of Æneas
Sylvius by his secretary Campana, as a guide to his choice of events,
but careful examination has shown certain variations and deviations from
this life, pointing to some other authority in use; and on comparison
we find that he certainly also had recourse to the Pope's own memoirs,
which supplied certain details and particulars not included in Campana's
work.
Dr. Schmarsow has made a long and exhaustive study of these frescoes
with special reference to Pintoricchio's relations with Raphael.[31] It
is impossible to go as minutely into the question as this talented
German has done, but it is one of great interest in artistic history,
and no life of Pintoricchio would be complete without some reference to
it.
[31] _Raphael und Pinturicchio in Siena._
The possibility of Raphael having supplied drawings and designs has been
a matter of heated controversy. Morelli casts scorn on the supposition;
Crowe and Cavalcaselle stand aghast and declare that, believing it, the
life of Raphael would have to be re-written. Bode says it is audacious
to contend that the great master and _entrepreneur_ would adopt the
designs of a young, untried painter. Vasari asks how we can suspect that
the master of fifty would follow a twenty-year-old assistant: this is
the general tendency of objections. While, naturally, regretting any
conviction that tends to detract from the painter whose fascination I
feel, and upon whose life I am engaged, having to the best of my power
weighed all the rival criticisms, I cannot avoid the conviction that
Schmarsow is right, and that Raphael did help with two or three at least
of the frescoes, and perhaps, as he suggests, with others. The evidence
that ascribes the drawings left for them to the young Urbinate appears
to me too strong to resist. Raphael, to begin with, though only twenty
when these drawings were executed, cannot be called unknown. He had
already produced several noticeable works. Only three years later, in a
contract of 1505, he is styled the best master in Perugia. The nuns of
Monte Luce, wanting an altar-piece, "fere trovare el maestro el
migliore, si posse consiglialo ... lo quale si chiamava Maestro
Raphaello da Urbino." Pintoricchio would have had the wit to see what a
gift he was dealing with; and, as for taking the designs of an
assistant, had not he himself supplied several of the figures for
Perugino's great work in the Sixtine?
The great probability of Raphael's being in Siena in 1502, when the
designs for the cartoons would be making, is proved by his picture of
the "Three Graces"--two of which are copied from the mutilated Greek
group, one of the best specimens of the antique then known. This group
was brought from Rome by the Cardinal, to place in his costly Library.
Vasari speaks of the _Cardinal_ (not the Pope) as having brought it to
the not quite finished Library, which would put the transit before
September 1503. In the summer of 1502 the Cardinal made his last journey
from Rome, and it was very likely then that he brought it back. An
elaborate pencil sketch of it exists: opinions are divided as to which
of the painters this was the work of, but Raphael's own picture is
guarantee that he must have seen and been struck by the original. It has
been argued that it is not absolutely necessary that the author of the
drawings should have been in Siena, but their adaptability and
suitability to the walls makes this most unlikely. Four drawings for
the Library exist--one each in Florence and Perugia, one at Milan, and
one at Chatsworth. They are drawn with Indian ink, and the two first
touched with bistre and heightened with white.
The first, which deals with the "Journey to the Council of Basel," has a
long inscription at the top. The handwriting of this, if compared with
Raphael's letter to Domenico Alfani, or that to his uncle Simone Ciarla,
is no doubt Raphael's own, and the same hand has made notes in other
parts of the drawing. It is possible, but not very probable, that the
assistant should have annotated the master's design; but the connection
between the inscription and the drawing, the various small changes made
and accounted for as it progresses, make us almost certain that the
designer of this cartoon was also the writer of the notes upon it. As
each drawing has been transferred to the wall and worked out, we see
gradual alterations, evidently made to add importance to the hero of the
series. In the sketch Æneas wears a tight doublet and close cap. He
looks, what he was, a young man going forth to seek his fortune. In the
fresco he is dressed in a mantle and broad hat, to make the future Pope
more imposing. The letter which he carried to Capranica has been placed
in his hand. The storm from which Æneas escaped has been merely
indicated in the drawing. In the fresco, lowering clouds and a rainbow
are added. A dog, the greyhound of which Pintoricchio was so fond, has
been introduced, standing perfectly still though in the leash of a
galloping rider.
[Illustration:
_Private photo_] [_Gallery, Venice_
STUDY FOR FRESCO I.
(By Raphael)]
We gather from all these changes that the drawing did not exactly
satisfy the painter who worked on it after it was transferred to the
wall. It is, however, in the spirit and bearing of the whole that we see
the greatest difference. In the drawing the artist has shaken off the
stiff Perugian manner, has got at nature, and has found new ways of
handling. The riders are strong and elastic; the page to the right is
supple and natural, but in the fresco is twisted round into an ungainly
attitude. The cavalcade has a life and movement that we hardly expect to
find in Pintoricchio. The horses, if anything, bear witness more
remarkably than the men. Up to this time very few masters could draw
horses with any success. Uccello and Donatello, Verrocchio and his pupil
Leonardo, all Florentines, were almost the sole exceptions. To decide if
Raphael could draw horses we have only to glance at such early works of
his as the two little "St. Georges" in the Louvre. It was in 1502 that
Raphael first came to Florence, just at the time that Leonardo's great
cartoon of the battle of the standard was exposed to the public. We are
told that Raphael spent much time in copying Leonardo. Indeed, among the
so-called Venetian sketches is one, now called the "Battle of the
Standard," which is unanimously ascribed to Raphael, and which is
believed to be a sketch from Leonardo's cartoon. If we compare the horse
in the drawing for the "Journey to Basel" with that horse, and if we
further compare with both the horse in the sketch for the "St. George"
(at St. Petersburg) we shall see numerous points of resemblance--in the
broad head and tapering muzzle, the round, accentuated haunches, the
shape of the foot, and the very curves of the flowing tail. The horses
in the fresco look very wooden beside them, with their long, woolly
tails. What we feel forcibly--what anyone must feel who is, not
necessarily an artist, but a judge of a horse, is that the man who drew
the sketch knew indisputably what were the points of a good horse, while
if the painter of the fresco had known as much he could never have
painted the horses on the wall.
There is, moreover, another point, which I do not think has been noticed
before. On looking again at Raphael's undoubted sketch of the "Battle
for the Standard," we perceive that the splendid figure of the nude man
who snatches at the horse's head has served for the model of the
standard-bearer in the drawing of the "Journey to Basel"; every line is
the same, the plant of the feet, the turn of the head, the uplifted arm.
Now we know that if Raphael was in Siena, he came straight from
Florence, while we have no indication that Pintoricchio was ever in
Florence at all, and what would be more likely than that Raphael, full
of his studies of Leonardo, should take the opportunity of bringing in
the horses and men he had just been copying, and which we know to have
made so deep an impression upon him?
The drawing at Perugia for the fresco of the "Meeting of Frederick III.
and Eleanora of Portugal" has the words, "questa e la quinta della
(storia) del Papa" (this is the fifth of the story of the Pope), written
on it, in the same fine handwriting that we see on the "Journey to
Basel." We see here the clear rules of composition learnt from
Perugino--the middle point and radiation from it--with the figures
placed in pairs, as in the "Giving of the Keys"--an arrangement which
had great influence over Raphael's compositions, though it never took
much hold of Pintoricchio. In the fresco, the lines of the radius are
quite lost sight of; the spectators are brought in in the usual
indistinct masses. It has been suggested that, as the spot on which the
meeting took place is much more like in the fresco than in the
drawing,--the column being evidently copied in the first and not in the
last,--Raphael may have drawn the design away from Siena, and sent it
marked with the inscription.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_] [_Library, Siena_
ÆNEAS PICCOLOMINI ON HIS WAY TO THE COUNCIL AT BASEL]
Schmarsow sees a resemblance to Raphael's style in the sketch for the
"Conference" (IV.)--in the lines of composition, and in the more
graceful and life-like action of the Pope's head and some of the groups
at the side;--the two fine figures in front in the fresco, which are
unmistakably by Pintoricchio, do not exist in the drawing.
The drawing at Milan, of fresco III., the "Poet Crowned," is now known
to be a sketch from the finished fresco, and though it is under
Raphael's name, is not worthy of notice. There are, however, at Oxford
two studies of four pages, the style and technique of which point to
Raphael. These appear in the fresco. They are the pike-bearer and
standard-bearer, with legs apart, in the background of the company, and
the page in front of them leaning on a stick. The _loggia_ in the
background accords well with the style of Raphael's buildings. His taste
for architectural backgrounds was quite as keen as that of Pintoricchio,
and he had been in intimate relation with Bramante and with Luciano
Lauranna, the architect, who was his kinsman, when he came to Perugia.
Certain details in this remind us of the _loggia_ of the Castle of
Urbino, with which, of course, Raphael was well acquainted. What is most
unlike Pintoricchio, and very characteristic of Raphael, in this fresco,
is the concentration of interest, the way in which the attention is
insensibly attracted to the principal figure; the poetic moment is
caught in a way which points to Raphael's quality of composition. Here
and there are figures of a freshness and grace which speak to us of the
freer hand of the youthful artist pressing forward and casting aside old
methods. Such is the young prince in the second fresco, with plumed hat,
who stands at the left of the King of Scotland.
Peculiarities of Pintoricchio's own are repeated over and over again.
The hand with outstretched finger we find no less than thirteen times.
The same heads are used. The head of the greybeard on the left, in
fresco I., is repeated nine times; the man with pointed beard, in front
on the left of fresco II., comes in as the emperor in fresco III., and
in the foreground, as a spectator, in the sixth tableau. We admire again
the way in which Pintoricchio is able to divide his assistants, to use
their various hands so that monotony is avoided, while imposing his own
style sufficiently to produce a strikingly homogeneous impression.
Instead of fighting against the amalgamated proof that Raphael had some
share in the work, we may picture to ourselves the friendship that we
have reason to think existed between the older man and the versatile and
tactful youth, whose talent for making friends with his elders never
failed him. We can imagine the deep consultation with which they must
have paced these floors, and pored over sketches and designs; and if we
wanted an assurance of Raphael's presence and of his employer's
affection, surely the number of times that a youth is painted, for whom
Raphael, to all appearance, stood as model, would supply one--not only
in the careful portrait in the scene of "St. Catherine's Canonisation,"
but in one of the bearers to the old Pope, fresco VIII., and in the
young man stepping forward, hand on hip, in fresco X., not to single out
others less conspicuously like.
In the first, third, and fifth, then, Schmarsow sees the design of
Raphael, and he thinks he also had some hand in numbers two and four. No
doubt, after these, the composition of the remaining ones is less
excellent, and there is a falling off in life and spirit.
Some of the helpers seem to come direct from Perugino's workshop. We
find the prototypes of the greybeards in the Cambio--Socrates, Pericles,
and the rest. In the execution of the "Betrothal," Steinmann sees signs
of a Lombard's hand, in the dress and hair of the maids-of-honour, and
the groups massed in the background. Sodoma was possibly working with
Pintoricchio; he was in Siena this year, and Rumohr thinks he sees his
hand in the distant figures of the crowning of the poet. Eusebio di San
Giorgio, the Raffaelesque Perugian, was helping, and possibly also
Pacchiarotto.
Born in 1405, at the little village of Corsignano, afterwards re-named
Pienza, Æneas Piccolomini early showed a keenness of intellect and an
aptitude for classic learning which induced his tutor, the great
scholar Fidelfo, to send the needy young scion of a great house out
into the world to seek his fortune, with introductions which carried him
into the service of Domenico Capranica, Bishop of Fermo, that Cardinal
whose tomb may be seen in Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. Domenico
made him his secretary, and, as he was on his way to the Council at
Basel, he took Æneas in his suite. The story told by the frescoes begins
here.
The cavalcade, having narrowly escaped shipwreck on the Libyan strand
and landed at Genoa, are setting forth on their "Journey across the
Apennines to Basel." Behind them is the sea; in the sky the great
storm-clouds are passing away, and the rainbow shines out. Above the bay
we discern the town, the point where now stands the Doria Palace and its
gardens; the solemn churchmen journeying forward on their sedate mules.
In the foreground rides Æneas and a youthful follower. The whole of the
attention centres in the bright handsome figure of Æneas; our interest
is at once bespoken on behalf of the gallant young adventurer going
forth on his spirited white horse to seek his fortune. The young man on
the bay horse beyond him, another layman among the throng of clerics and
dignitaries, may be intended for his brother-secretary, Piero da Noceto.
This is one of the most charming of the frescoes, full of movement and
gaiety. Pintoricchio does not give much prominence to the "Conference at
Basel," which was one of anti-Papal tendencies.
In the next fresco we find the young Piccolomini on a "Mission to James
I. of Scotland," to whom he was despatched by the Cardinal of Santa
Croce, an able and influential man, into whose service he had entered in
1440, and who sent him to persuade the King of Scotland to cross the
Border and to menace the King of England. His interview with James I.
forms the subject of the second fresco. The King, in yellow robes, and
the two supporters on either hand, in blue and green, are the most
prominent figures, and form between them a sort of triangle, a
symmetrical manner of composition which was just coming into favour. We
have to look for the beautiful and graceful figure of Æneas as, full of
dignity, he comes forward to the side of the King's throne--his gesture
in telling the points of his message upon his fingers is that which
Pintoricchio makes use of in "St. Catherine before the Philosophers";
but this is a much more natural and easy attitude. His dark red robe and
violet mantle hang in simple and voluminous folds. With his flowing hair
he might be a young St. John taken out of one of Perugino's pictures.
The background here is very beautiful, seen through the airy row of
cinque-cento arches, with the sunny little town in the distance
reflected in the lake. In his memoirs, the young secretary has left us a
most graphic description of his impressions of Scotland, of his journey
north from Dover, of the comely blue-eyed women and scantily-clothed
men, and comments on the singular kind of sulphurous stone which they
burn instead of wood. He gives a vivid picture of these islands in the
first half of the fifteenth century; but the painter had no knowledge to
enable him to grasp it. He has apparently heard that Scotland was a land
of lakes and mountains; but though the interview took place in
mid-winter, he has made the trees in full leaf.
Æneas spent much time in study of the classics and on verse composition,
after the manner of Cicero. He had achieved a poem of two thousand
lines, entitled "Nymphilexis," which was received with acclamations by
his friends. Modern critics hold its merit to be as low as its easy
morality, and in fact it was a true index of the discreditable life he
was at this time leading at the German Court. In 1442 he was at Basel
with the German Ambassador, and was commended to the service of the King
of the Romans, afterwards the Emperor, Frederick III. Frederick proposed
to make him one of his Imperial secretaries, and to appoint him his
Court poet. It was an honour which had hitherto been in use only in the
more refined Italian courts, where it had been conferred on Petrarch,
Dante, and others, and was esteemed an extraordinary mark of excellence
in arts and literature. Only one person in the kingdom could hold it at
a time, and after receiving it Æneas Silvius signed himself "_poeta_" in
all his letters, so that we need not wonder that this event was chosen
as one of the most remarkable of his life. Æneas, in his flowing robes,
kneels at the King's feet; the throne with its ample steps is set in a
splendid, open _piazza_, with the noble flight of steps leading up to
the _loggia_ and out into the blue landscape; little groups enliven the
background; a man stabs at a woman on the balcony; handsome pages and
courtiers stand about. It has been pointed out that, as if to mark the
neutrality of Germany on the question of the Papacy, not a single
ecclesiastic appears in the crowd.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_] [_Library, Siena_
FREDERICK III. CROWNING ÆNEAS PICCOLOMINI AS POET LAUREATE]
The memoirs at this time show Æneas as a clever waiter on the favour of
princes, not over-scrupulous in striving for advancement, watching the
signs of the times, and chafing under his dependence and poverty. In
1445 he was sent by Frederick III. on an important mission to Pope
Eugenius (fresco IV.), and from this time he becomes a figure in
European history. He begins himself to plan definitely for the unity of
the Church, and to desire to stem the forward movements of the Turks.
His journey from Germany to Italy in the depths of winter was an arduous
one. He encountered swollen torrents and broken bridges, and guided by
peasants had "to scale most high and trackless ways, and precipitous,
snow-clad mountains. On the road he visited his parents at Siena, and
when they tried to dissuade him from approaching the fierce and
unforgiving Pope Eugenius, declared that he would carry out his embassy
to a prosperous end, or perish in the attempt."
He was eminently successful in his negotiations, and effected a
reconciliation between Rome and Germany, and the fresco represents him
kneeling humbly before the Pope and kissing his foot. On either side
sits the long row of cardinals; outside we see the busy life of the
Papal Court. Here Pintoricchio has brought in a rather (for him) unusual
harmony in greens on the carpeting, the baldacchino, and the Pope's
robes. The two figures in the foreground are said to be portraits of the
Cardinals of Como and Amiens, who were both powerful friends of Æneas.
The little scene through the arches on the right of the Pope brings in
another episode, where the envoy receives (fresco V.) investiture as
Cardinal.
After this successful mission the Secretary for the first time turned
his mind to the ecclesiastical life, and began to reckon on all the
bright prospects it was likely to open to him. He had hitherto had the
honesty to regard the license of his life as a barrier to religious
orders; but his passions were growing more controllable with advancing
years, and his dislike to the idea of the priesthood had passed away. He
writes that he has passed from the worship of Venus to that of Bacchus,
and appears to think nothing more could be required of anyone. In 1446
he received the tonsure, and was speedily named Bishop of Trieste; and
three years later was appointed to the See of Siena. It was in this
capacity that he was chosen to welcome to Italy Leonora of Portugal
(fresco VI.), the bride of his late patron. Frederick III. was to come
to Siena to meet her, and to proceed to Rome for the wedding. After some
delays, Æneas received the princess on her landing at Leghorn; and on
her arrival at Siena she was met by Frederick, accompanied by a splendid
retinue, which included a hundred citizens "in scarlet and samite," a
thousand knights under Duke Albert of Austria, the young King of
Hungary, the precious relics of the city and clergy innumerable. The
royal pair met outside the Camollia gate, and memoirs tell us that when
the bride came in sight Frederick leapt from his horse and hastened to
meet her, and that "he was rejoiced to see her so young and fair."
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_] [_Library, Siena_
ÆNEAS PICCOLOMINI SENT BY FREDERICK III. TO POPE EUGENIUS IV.]
This is the moment chosen for the fifth fresco, and gives the artist
every scope for lively action and gay and brilliant colouring. Æneas,
standing between the King and his young bride, is still the most
prominent figure. The ladies of her train are grouped around the
Infanta, as the attendant maidens round Mary in many a version of the
"Sposalizio." Behind the Bishop stands a dignitary with a white cross on
his breast, who we identify from Pintoricchio's lately finished portrait
in the Baptistry, as Alberto Aringhieri, the Knight of Rhodes. The man
on the left, with heavily-draped mantle and looped-up hat, is Hans
Leubin, the King's Court poet, who had been appointed to deliver an
address of welcome, which he is represented as just beginning to recite.
Behind the group is set up, by a pardonable anachronism, the marble
column which was afterwards placed there as a memorial of the
meeting-place. On either side is a tall, stately plane-tree and a
fruit-bearing palm, typical of the bridal pair. The road winds up to the
Camollia gate, beyond which we espy the tall towers of the city, "Siena
of the rosy walls and rosy towers," the cathedral with its dome and
campanile, and the ground falling away into the ravine which lies
between it and San Domenico.
Whether Raphael's inspiration really was withdrawn at this period, or
whether Pintoricchio's own fancy flagged, it is undeniable that the
remaining frescoes show a falling off, and are less satisfactory than
the earlier ones. The next scene shows us "Æneas Silvius receiving the
Cardinal's hat." On the ride to Rome with the bridal pair, Frederick had
drawn rein as they came to the brow of the hill, from which they first
looked down on the valley of the Tiber, and said to Æneas, "Look now--we
go up to Rome; methinks I see thee a Cardinal, and in truth thy fortunes
will not tarry there, thou shalt climb yet higher; St. Peter's chair
awaits thee; look not down on me when thou shalt have reached that
pinnacle of honour." And though Æneas modestly disclaimed such a
prospect, he confessed afterwards how great were his efforts to enter
the Sacred College. His hopes were frustrated by the reigning Pope
Nicolas, who was notoriously unfriendly to him, and it was not till the
election of Alonso da Borgia as Calixtus II. that he saw his way to
further advancement. Calixtus, who was an old man and almost bedridden,
appointed, among others, his kinsman, Roderigo Borgia (after Alexander
VI.), as Cardinal. To this ambitious and intriguing man Æneas attached
himself, and bade farewell to Germany and his royal patron.
It was shortly before this that he began to devote all his energy and
eloquence to preaching a new crusade against the Turks, whose conquest
of Constantinople and succeeding inroads into Europe began seriously to
alarm the civilised world. It was the only question which roused the old
Pope to eagerness and determined him to invest the eloquent advocate as
Cardinal in spite of bitter opposition from the Sacred College, who
dreaded his keen intelligence. Though the architectural drawing, as
usual, is good, the flat wall with two white windows has a bad effect.
The altar is loaded with heavily embossed gilding; the groups behind are
confused, and the figure of Æneas himself is lacking in dignity and
distinction. In the foreground stand two Greek patriarchs, whose
presence is intended to convey their satisfaction at the elevation of
their champion and that of the cause of Christendom.
We now find the Cardinal of Siena working his way to the Papal throne.
He had a powerful friend in Cardinal Borgia, with whom he was engaged in
anything but reputable transactions in benefices, by which he contrived
to amass sufficient wealth; but besides this he really worked hard in
the cause of the Church, and his courtly manners and attractive
personality, as well as his real kindliness, won him many friends. When
the old Calixtus died, in August 1458, he was ready to come forward, and
has left us a striking account of the incidents of the election. His
only rival was the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen, a Bourbon, rich and
ambitious.
All the night before the election the principal of each party and his
immediate supporters were holding secret meetings, passing from cell to
cell with arguments and persuasion. When at length all met, pale and
trembling with excitement, to deposit their votes in the chalice, Æneas
was found to have nine votes and the Cardinal of Rouen six. Three
Cardinals who had voted for another candidate were now to give casting
votes. "Long the whole conclave sat in silence; the slightest rustle of
a robe, the turn of a head, the movement of a foot, sent a thrill of
anxiety round the whole circle. At last the fine figure of Roderigo
Borgia was seen to rise. Amidst breathless stillness, he in the usual
form declared that he acceded to the Cardinal of Siena." After a short
delay the two others followed, and thus, at the age of fifty-three,
Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini became Pope, by the title of Pius II.
The fresco seizes the moment when the Pope, borne through the aisles of
St. Peter's, is stopped, according to ancient usage, by the Master of
the Ceremonies, who kindles a piece of tow dipped in spirit, and, as the
light dies away, delivers the solemn warning, "Sancte Pater, Sic transit
gloria mundi." The Pope, under the baldacchino, heavy with armorial
bearings, and wearing the dark-blue mantle which accorded with the
colours of his house, lifts his gloved fingers solemnly in blessing. He
is painted here as an older man, already worn with anxiety. In the
foreground two figures in Oriental dress remind us that assistance
against the Turk was the mission to which the newly-made Pope had
specially pledged himself. St. Peter's is, of course, the old basilica
which was destroyed by Julius II.
Fresco VIII. "Congress at Mantua." In pursuance of his proposed crusade,
Pius II., in 1459, summoned the powers of Christendom to hold a congress
at Mantua to consider the necessary measures. It lingered on for eight
months, when war against the Sultan was formally declared, but gave
occasion for more intrigues and self-seeking on the part of those
assembled than for any real sacrifices for the cause. Pius II. is here
represented directing the deliberations of the Congress. The person of
distinction pleading with the Pope is said to be the Greek Patriarch,
the envoys of the persecuted Eastern Christians are grouped in the
foreground, Cardinals sit on the Pope's right hand, and others--princes,
ecclesiastics, and suppliants--form a crowd behind. The arrangement of
this scene is not happy. The figures are cut up in an awkward way and
the perspective is questionable. It is redeemed by the airy arches and
the charming landscape beneath them.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_] [_Library, Siena_
A GROUP OF MEN
(A detail from Fresco IX.)]
"A Sienese filling the Chair of St. Peter may well be the instrument to
call a Sienese to sainthood, and that we do with holy joy." So spoke
Pius II. in pronouncing between the claims of three holy Virgins, Rosa
of Viterbo, Francesca of Rome, and Catherine of Siena. The superior
claims of St. Catherine have been fully acknowledged by history: her
influence in healing the great schism of the Urbanists and the
Clementists, her saintly life, her magnetic personality, are sufficient
reasons without adding the miracles with which she was credited.
In fresco IX. the Pope is seated on the "high and well-appointed
balcony," which he had ordered should be erected in St. Peter's, whence,
after a discourse on her virtues, he might proceed to her solemn
canonisation. The Cardinals are gathered round, the corpse of the saint
lies at his feet, clad in the black and white of the Dominican order,
her book upon her breast, and the lilies, which are her attribute, in
her folded hands. Below stand a crowd of spectators bearing candles. In
front is a long row of persons, said to be portraits. The first on the
left we should guess to be Raphael, even without the traditional
confirmation. Next him is Pintoricchio himself. The others have been
variously named Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolommeo, etc. Steinmann
suggests, with more probability, that one is intended for Eusebio di San
Giorgio and another for Bembo Romano, who were both working as
assistants, especially as the initials of the last are to be discerned
on several of the pilasters among the decorations. The composition in
this scene is rather disjointed. The two halves do not seem to belong to
each other, and it is curious to note the difference between the
conventional arrangement of the groups in the background and the
characteristic forms and much more structural figures which the painter
has evidently drawn from the life. The effigy of St. Catherine is taken
from her monument in Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. The Dominicans
and Augustinians are prominent, as it was of their order that the saint
was so great an ornament.
Pope Pius was one of the few Italians of that day in whom a great love
for nature declared itself. Campana tells us of his visits to beautiful
places, of his landscape gardening and planting, of his fondness for
distant views, and for taking his food under the trees on some
hill-side. It pleased him to chat with the peasants, to joke with his
friends with "free and festive converse passing into moderate jest." He
loved to build and adorn in his native city, and for a time he seemed to
be only a man of cultivated and artistic life and busy pleasures. But he
had not forgotten his crusading enthusiasm, and as the news travelled to
Rome of the repeated victories of the Turks, of the loss of Morea,
Rhodes, Cyprus, and of the Moslem advance on every side, he laid before
his Cardinals his resolve to take up a holy war, counting upon the
Christian princes of Europe rallying to his support. He mediated between
the different quarrelsome Powers, and signed a league by which he was
to meet the Venetians and an army of the Duke of Burgundy at Ancona;
but the powers were half-hearted, only a small part of the promised
forces arrived, and Ancona seems to have been a scene of rioting and
mismanagement.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_] [_Library, Siena_
ÆNEAS PICCOLOMINI ELECTED POPE UNDER THE NAME OF PIUS II.]
On June 18, 1464, the Pope, "an aged man with head of snow and trembling
limbs," raised aloft the Cross at the altar of St. Peter's, and vowing
himself to the service of Christendom, set forth for Ancona. "Farewell,
Rome," he cried, as his barge passed down the Tiber, "living thou shalt
never see me more." He was very ill with fever, but the high spirit that
had helped him all through life, did not forsake him. The weather was
broiling hot, and the Pope suffered greatly on the journey. He was a
month reaching Ancona, and had the added discouragement of meeting bands
of deserting crusaders on the way. No ships had arrived from Venice, and
when at last they appeared, the soldiers they were to embark had nearly
all melted away. Pius realised at length that the undertaking had come
to naught. Ill, disappointed, heartsick, he remained at Ancona, and when
the Venetian fleet appeared, after long delay, he could just bear to be
lifted to a window to see the long-watched-for sails.
The Doge, who accompanied the fleet, would not at first believe in the
reality of the Pope's illness, and sent his physician to see if he were
not feigning in order to escape the necessity of setting forth, but the
end was near. It was at sunset on the 12th of August that the Venetian
ships entered the harbour; at sunset on the 14th the Pope passed away.
By his death he escaped the misery of failure; the attempt came to a
natural end, and Pius was surrounded with a halo of martyrdom and
heroism--not all undeserved, for, unsuccessful as he was, he yet was the
only potentate who made any effort to stem the power of the infidel, and
his unsupported struggle and baffled aspirations form a pathetic close
to his active and successful life.
In the fresco there is no hint of the sad and wasted moments.
Pintoricchio's part was to glorify and dignify the memory of the Pope,
and to please the house of Piccolomini. The Pope is raised on high and
borne forward by his followers. In front, dressed in gold brocade,
kneels Christoforo Morea, the Doge of Venice. On the opposite side
kneels a Turk, and another fierce-looking Oriental stands behind him.
These may be recollections of Djem and his followers, whom Pintoricchio
had already painted in the Borgia rooms. Behind lie the town and harbour
of Ancona, with the Venetian fleet anchored in the bay.
There only remained for Pintoricchio to leave a memorial of the
coronation of the second Pope of the House of Piccolomini, and this is
placed over the door of the Library. It is something like the
"Canonisation of St. Catherine," in the way in which it is divided into
two parts. The perspective is not well managed. The Pope and the two
Cardinals who assist him to place the mitre on his head, have the effect
of a picture background to the busy scene below, and the long rows of
white-mitred bishops give a very inartistic impression. Below them is a
crowd of spectators, of all ages and both sexes--the whole confused and
not well drawn, and there is an unfortunate lack of proportion between
the different figures.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_] [_Library, Siena_
POPE PIUS II. AT ANCONA]
The frescoes have been much retouched, though, on the whole, they are in
wonderful preservation. Where the yellows and blues have been most
repainted the effect is hard and glaring; but where the same colours are
not meddled with, as in the Pope's blue robe, and that of the Doge of
No. X., Elizabeth's robe, and the King's mantle in the meeting of the
bridal pair, and in most of the pinks and rose-reds, the tones are much
softer and more pleasing. Only in the hall itself can we appreciate the
way in which the open-air and indoor scenes are arranged and balanced
and the architectural setting worked in so as to give lightness and
distinction. The line of sight is high, about two-thirds of the way up
the picture; this to some extent places the spectator in a wrong
position, but the whole goes back, so that, far from being oppressed
with a feeling of covered walls, a sense of space and withdrawal is
conveyed that enlarges the room in a marvellous manner.
The repose of the hall in its entirety is very striking; hardly a figure
is in anything like violent action, all move and stand with quiet
dignity, all the movement takes place well within the picture, and the
extraordinarily clever use made of the sky, ceiling, floor, and wide
retreating background, give us breath and air, and a sense of delight
and freedom. In as many as eight of these frescoes we have an enthroned
figure, yet treated with what variety and absence of monotony. The first
scene shows us a joyous youth setting out on a stormy journey; the last,
an old man, pale and careworn, carried by loving friends, and behind
him, an untroubled sea and the calm of sunset. The ceiling is a curious
mixture of sacred subjects and mythological ones, after the manner of
that in the Colonna Palace, but not very appropriate to the Pope's
Chapel; sporting of fauns and nymphs, Cupid riding on a green dolphin,
grotesques, recalling the choir of Santa Maria del Popolo, but richer in
colour and more delicately harmonised. The dark oak, the blue and
white-tiled floor, with the yellow crescent of the Piccolomini, and the
pilasters repeating the blue and white, are all part of the design, in
which there is one guiding hand. It is all well adapted to give
brightness to the long room, so slightly arched, and lighted only from
one end. The room is so beautiful that it is hard to say that it is
mechanical--yet assuredly there is something stiff and academic about
it, some loss of grace and the joyous sense of creation, a feeling that
the painter was growing old and tired, and that the childlike enjoyment
of beauty was less keen. In the first fresco, whether we owe it to the
young Raphael's help or to the natural interest at starting, we
recognise buoyancy and the love of experiment; and we have something of
it again in the fairy-tale tableau, where the prince and the lady meet,
but the colour has become gaudier and cheaper, the _naïveté_, the
enchantment, the unconsciousness, have in some measure passed away, the
tide of fancy is running lower, and it is now that we chiefly feel the
lack of that well of science from which the artist can drink ever deeper
as the years go by.