The Story of Perugia :: CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIII

Via dei Priori—Perugino’s House,—Madonna della Luce—S. Bernardino and S. Francesco al Prato

JUST under the bell tower of the Palazzo Pubblico a narrow street, called the Via dei Priori, well-paved, and preserving many characteristics of the mediÆval city, runs steeply down through the Porta S. Susanna and into the open country by the station. Once when the nobles were fighting in the square above, or more probably in the Corso, the blood flowed so freely that it is said to have come running down the street in a crimson stream at night—hence the name of Via del Piscinello which is given to the street a little lower down. The houses are very old, very grim, and closely packed in the Via dei Priori. The lumieri, where the heads of enemies were hung, stand out maliciously upon the walls of the Palazzo Pubblico to the right, and many of the palaces have still their narrow doors for the dead or porte del mortuccio.[76]

From the Chiesa Nuova (built in 1218 but entirely remodelled and spoilt by bad decoration) a narrow street leads off to the left and down past some charming red brick palaces into a narrower street where what is known as Perugino’s house still stands.

THE OLD COLLEGIO DEI NOTARI, SAID TO BE THE STUDIO OF PERUGINO
THE OLD COLLEGIO DEI NOTARI, SAID TO BE THE STUDIO OF PERUGINO

Though there seems to be but very slight evidence about the real abode of the painter, his studio has been fixed in the beautiful old corner palace with the red marble windows in the Via del Commercio off the Corso. But one place does as well as another to pin a legend to,

TORRE DEGLI SCIRRI
TORRE DEGLI SCIRRI

and this little house of mean appearance tucked away in a dark and somewhat dingy street, with only a marble slab to mark it, serves the purpose well enough. Indeed, if one believed Vasari, one could with ease imagine Perugino choosing such a spot as this to hide his wife, his crimes (?) and all his money in, and see him hurrying thither in the dusk of a December evening from some big church or city where he had been to paint an altar-piece for prince or pontiff. One can even picture the long dark cloak he wore to cover up his money bag, his little cap pressed low upon his rather cloudy forehead, and one can almost hear him chuckle as he eats his maccaroni and strokes the fair hair of the woman he so loved, thinking with the joy of malice of all the other women who would come to pray and weep before his saints and his PietÀs.

But this is nothing better than a dream. Blankly one looks at the slab above the door, at the wall from which even the frescoe of S. Christopher has vanished, and from the utter silence of the place one hurries away and further on down the Via dei Priori. The street ends, and one passes into the open country through the Porta S. Susanna. Just above is the Torre degli Scirri—one of the only specimens remaining of all the wealth of towers in the past. A tree has grown upon its very top as though to seal the peace which follows after strife. A little further on is the small church of the Madonna della Luce. The front of this church is a very dainty bit of architecture and was designed by Cesarino Roscetto, a Perugian goldsmith, who also made the silver shrine in the cathedral which holds the Virgin’s ring. It has inside a beautiful altar piece by some scholar of Perugino. The picture is exquisite in colour and in sentiment. Siepi gives a long history about it, which, although it does not altogether fit in with the facts of dates, we cannot refrain from mentioning here. (Perhaps he was alluding to some older fresco which has disappeared.) He says that on the 12th of September 1513 some youths were playing at cards under the

ETRUSCAN ARCH OF S. LUCA
ETRUSCAN ARCH OF S. LUCA

wall of a butcher’s shop which in old days stood outside the church of S. Francesco. One of them, a young barber, called Fallerio, lost heavily at the game, whereat he swore a terrible oath, hearing which blasphemy the Madonna in her shrine by the wayside closed her eyes, and kept them closed for the space of four whole days. On the 16th she opened them again. So great was the fame of this miracle, and the sensation it caused, that processions and great multitudes of people came to worship before her shrine, and on the 7th of April 1513 her picture was carried to its present place in the new church which the people built for her, and she was no longer called the Madonna di S. Luca, but the Madonna of Light to commemorate this wonderful occurrence.

From the church one road leads out into the country through the old Etruscan gate of S. Luca and another to the right into the Piazza della Giustizia: that fair open green which holds one of the loveliest flowers of Renaissance art—the faÇade of the Oratory of S. Bernardino.

S. Bernardino.

The Oratory was built in 1450 by the magistrates of Perugia, who were anxious to leave to their city some enduring mark of the man whose influence in times of extreme moral depravity and perpetual party strife had been so purely one of good to the citizens of Perugia. The life of S. Bernardino of Siena is familiar to most people. He, like S. Francis, exercised an extraordinary power over the minds of men in the middle ages by the mere example of pure living and sweetness of character, but perhaps his power lay a little more in preaching and in stirring men to action than that of the saint of Assisi, whose influence was more absolutely that of peace.

S. Bernardino of Siena was born at Massa, near Siena, in 1380. His mother died early, leaving the child to the care of an aunt. By this lady, Diana degli Albizeschi, he was educated with extreme care and tenderness, and he grew up beautiful, gracious, and very pure of heart. At seventeen he joined a confraternity at Siena, and by the early age of twenty-four he had already shaken an always weak constitution by his great labours for the sick in the time of plague. He died at Aquila in the Abruzzi, and was canonized in 1450 by Pope Nicholas V. S. Bernardino’s life was one perpetual strain towards the light in an age which was dark, and one of its greatest objects had been to reconcile the mutual hatred of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. He was full of child-like faith and wise philanthropy; and tradition says that it was he who started the first Monte di PietÀ or pawnshop, and Perugia claims the privilege of having seen the first of these institutions.[77]

The figure of S. Bernardino is always unmistakable in art, and it becomes familiar to us in Perugia, where he exercised an extraordinary power, and where he would preach from his pulpit in the public square to an almost maddened crowd of penitents. The saint is always represented holding a square tablet with the initials of Christ set round with rays upon it, because he was accustomed to hold one of these whilst preaching. His face is emaciated, but beautiful both in line and in expression; it is a face which the spirit illumines with an unmistakable glory. Mrs Jameson, in her life of the saint, says that the finest sculptured portrait of him is that on the faÇade of his Oratory at Perugia; and certainly, if taken merely as a graceful bit of art, few things could do more honour to the man whose best tribute, however, will always be his extraordinary hold on the hearts of men throughout the whole of Italy.

In 1461 the people of Perugia called in a Florentine sculptor, Agostino Ducci or Gucci, to ornament the faÇade of their new oratory. This sculptor is described by both Vasari and Mariotti as Agostino della Robbia, and connected, either as a son or a brother, with that well-known family. The connection is, however, not proved, neither does his work seem to corroborate it in any way.[78]

The faÇade of S. Bernardino is a marvellous and perhaps a unique thing in art. The work on it is light and airy like the winds of spring. The figures of the angels, the garlands, and the saint himself, are full of that elegant and subtle charm which now and then surprises one in sculpture. Ducci made wonderful use of the pale pink marble of the country, mixing it with terra-cotta figures, bits of blue sky, and marble, creamy white, for all his garlands. Perhaps the loveliest figures, where all are lovely, are those of the six virtues, Mercy,[79] Holiness, and Purity, Religion, Mortification, and Patience, on either side of the entrance doors. But the different angels playing on different instruments, and the flying angels round the figure of the saint, are each delightful in their separate ways. Even the inevitable griffin seems softened by the hand of the Florentine sculptor, and he has admirably caught the purely spiritual nature of the saint, both in the large central portrait, and in the smaller plaques where some of his miracles are represented. Siepi gives a full description of the different scenes:

MERCY. DETAIL ON FAÇADE OF THE ORATORY OF S. BERNARDINO
MERCY. DETAIL ON FAÇADE OF THE ORATORY OF S. BERNARDINO

“Under the two higher niches,” he says, “are two squares, and on the right one of these we see the Saint, who, whilst preaching on the Isola Maggiore of our Lake of Trasimene received into his order the blessed Giacomo of the Marches.... To the left,” he continues, “the Saint is discovered preaching, and illuminated by a star, which in the full light of day shines over his head, a miracle which happened in the city of Aquila five years before his death, while preaching the praises of Mary.... Three other miracles of the Saint are given on the frieze below. In the middle one of these we see the Saint preaching to the people of Perugia, and the bonfire which he made them light on the piazza of our Duomo, where books of superstition, of necromancy and the law of astrology were burned in public, together with fashionable follies of the period: packs of cards, obscene pictures, forbidden weapons and ornaments of female luxury—instruments all of iniquity and of delight. Therefore it is that from the flames demons are seen to rise. In the miracle to the right we see two children saved by the intercession of the Saint from the furious waters of a mill-stream in which, having been caught, they were miraculously saved by the Saint from death....”

It is not very clear why this particular spot was chosen from all others on which to build the Oratory of S. Bernardino, but it was probably because it stood so close to the convent of S. Francesco al Prato, where the Saint, who himself was a Franciscan, would naturally stay when he paid his visits to Perugia. We hear that he was deeply attached to a certain bell which hung in the campanile of the convent, and which bore the name of Viola and was noted for the peculiar sweetness of its voice. It happened once, when all the bells of the town were ringing, that Viola fell. S. Bernardino was preaching at the minute up in the square of the cathedral, but by a miracle he heard her fall and stopped his sermon for an instant, saying to the people: “My children, Viola has fallen, but she is not harmed!” and he was right. Viola was set up in her place again and rings with a clear strong voice, dear to the heart of the Perugians, even in the present century.[80]

* * * * * * * *

Long even before the birth of S. Bernardino a much older order or ConfraternitÀ held its meetings in the small church at the back of the present oratory. This was the ConfraternitÀ di S. Andrea della Giustizia, and it was one of the earliest of those remarkable societies—one may almost describe them as religious guilds—which rose up out of that great devotional movement at the end of the middle ages which resulted in the extraordinary processions and displays of the “Flagellants.” “The movement,” says Doctor Creighton, “passed away; but it has left its dress as a distinctive badge to the confraternities of mercy which are familiar to the traveller in the streets of many cities of Italy.”

Morals, as we have seen, were very low in the thirteenth and the fourteenth century; blood flowed freely in party feuds and towns were devastated and corrupted by the strife of church and people. All these things, and the great pestilence which ravaged the country and the cities, were taken, and probably with perfect justice, to be the signs of an offended deity. “It was then,” says Bonazzi, “when men had grown familiar with death, that those strange songs arose which the people sang in the moonlight, wrapped in white sheets, whilst they danced the dances of the dead about the streets, clanging the bones together in weird accompaniment to their songs.” Doctor Creighton[81] dates this movement to the end of the fourteenth century. He says also that it originated in Provence. Perugia, however, lays strong claim to having herself sown the first seed, and this as early as the middle of the thirteenth century, of the displays of the Flagellants.

In 1265 we read the strange tale of a monk who describes himself as “Fra Raniero Fasano de Peroscia Comenzatore della Regola dei Battuti di Bologna.” Raniero tells us that he was accustomed, as a young monk at Perugia, to lead a life of excessive privation and abnegation, and one day, when scourging himself as was his custom, he was joined in a vision by certain saints who accompanied him to the church of S. Fiorenzo, and there they all beat themselves together in front of the high altar. This vision occurred day after day to Raniero, but at last one of the saints spoke to him and told him that it was the will of heaven that men should purge their sins in this same fashion. Raniero carried his tale to the Bishop, who expounded it in a sermon to the inhabitants of Perugia, and this, according to some historians, was the origin of all the fantastic demonstrations of public repentance which soon spread over Italy, and from which, as years went by, there arose the calmer and more practical institutions of Confraternities in the several cities. One of the earliest of these at Perugia itself was the company of S. Andrea, and it is interesting to read its laws and statutes. Through its own annals we find that it was started in 1374, during the reign of Pope Gregory XI. “for the furtherance of the worship of God and of His Mother the blessed Virgin Mary, and of the glorious martyrs and protectors of the city—Messers Sancto Ercolano, Sancto Laurenzo, Sancto Costanzo, and Sancto Andrea the apostle; and for the honour and estate of the Holy Mother Church and her protectors; and further for the maintenance, the governing, the magnificence, and the peaceful state of the people and the city of Peroscia.”

Infinite and careful laws of civil and religious duties follow—laws for the maintenance of peace and the Christian comfort of souls: the day of the saint was to be most strictly kept, fasting if possible, or by him who could not fast, a feast was to be given to a beggar or twenty-five paternosters told, “and all must be at mass that day or pay a fine of twenty soldi.” But the great work of the society of S. Andrea was the help and protection of criminals. Its members got permission from the city government to meet those who were going to execution, and to accompany them to the scene of death, comforting them by the way, and sustaining them with prayers and even sweetmeats to the very last. In early times criminals were beheaded far from the city walls; and in Perugia the place of doom was down in the open country on the site of an old Etruscan tomb, the Torre di S. Manno. “Wherefore,” writes one historian, “in the fatal passing of these miserable people, the pious disciplinati met them on the threshold, comforted them, assisted them, and went with them even unto the gallows.” Hence probably the name of “Giustizia” given to this particular square, and not, as is usually said, because justice was carried out on the spot itself.

The ConfraternitÀ of S. Andrea continued to increase both in power and in size. Other societies of the same charitable sort sprang up all through the city, and after the death of S. Bernardino of Siena a new one was started in his name at Porta Eburnea. But in one of the great fights between the nobles, their buildings were so knocked about and mutilated that the members of the society had to seek out different quarters, and they then joined themselves to the older confraternity of S. Andrea down at S. Francesco and thenceforth “worked together, extending their labour of charity to the inspection of prisons, and to the Christian comfort of prisoners.”[82]

S. Francesco al Prato.

To the right of the Oratory of S. Bernardino is the immense, but quite ruined, church and convent of S. Francesco al Prato. S. Francesco, more even than S. Domenico and so many of the churches of Perugia, is only the skeleton of a once beautiful body from which the silken robes, the jewels, even the flesh, have been torn rudely off by men and time. The church was built in 1230, in the form of a Latin cross with a single nave. But from the moment it was built, owing to the crumbling nature of the soil, and the heavy and overweighted style of its architecture, it was threatened with immediate destruction, so that in 1737 it fell in almost completely.

Throughout the history of Perugia we read of great events which centred in S. Francesco, of great men who were buried there, artists who painted, and popes who blessed and prayed. Of all these former splendours, nothing remains beyond a carcase of stone walls. The pictures—the Raphael, the Pinturicchios and the Peruginos, with the exception of Bonfigli’s banner in the chapel of the Gonfalone,[83] and one interesting early fresco down in the crypt,—have been removed to the Pinacoteca and to other towns. Fortebraccio’s bones have gone to the museum, Fra Egidio’s tomb is in the church near the museum, and the roof has fallen in upon a rubbish heap of beams, and bricks, and mortar.

S. Martino.

There are several ways of returning to the Duomo from the Piazza della Giustizia. One of the pleasantest runs through a bit of cultivated land outside the town walls: the Via di San Francesco, and, joining the Via della Conca, passes up under the Arco d’Augusta and back by the Via Vecchia. But another way, which few could find who did not know of it, winds back into the heart of the old town, actually crossing the Etruscan walls in one place, and comes out opposite the Canonica, having passed the little old church of S. Martino.

S. Martino is so old, and so much overshadowed by the big palace opposite, it is sunk so low upon the street, that passing by it hurriedly one scarcely recognises it as a church at all.[84] The high altar has a very beautiful altar-piece by Giannicola Manni—one of the loveliest bits of Umbrian colouring that we remember in Perugia, and there is a rather faulty fresco by some scholar of Perugino on the west wall, redeemed by that subtle and sweet charm peculiar to the work of the master. The little church is guarded by a true friend, who not only honours its pictures, but has even copied them with faithful care, and the whole place is filled with something of the quiet and religious fervour which lingers only after centuries of prayer and incense, and which is lacking in so many of the more frequented churches of the town.

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