The Canonica.

“Now Judith Marchesana of Tuscany, having a great love of jewellery (a thing not contrary to the nature of woman), despatched a certain Raneiro of Chiusi to Rome to make diligent search for jewels in that city. There he chanced to meet with a jeweller who had just returned from Jerusalem, and from him he bought many gems which he thought would be to the liking of his mistress. After abiding three days with the jeweller he decided to return to his home, and the Levantine, hearing of this, offered again to show him more gems till at last Raneiro grew angered and spoke bitter words to his host. ‘Nay,’ said the jeweller, ‘I have treated thee in all good faith, but now I know not whether by a spirit I am moved, or by the love I bear to thee, but certain it is that I feel driven to give thee this Ring;’ and he drew a small hoop from out the urn where the jewels lay. Raneiro, thinking it was an amethyst, an onyx or white agate, which stones are of but very slight importance in the history of gems, laughingly told his friend to keep his precious gift—‘Do not esteem my offering so vile,’ said the Levantine, ‘but, believe me, it is the most priceless treasure I possess; for be it known to you that this is the wedding-ring of the blessed Virgin Mary. Receive it therefore with all reverence, and see that the sacred relic fall not into the hands of the profane.’ ”

* * * * * * * *

There is a fine “miraculous”[60]picture on the third column to the right as one passes up the aisle of the cathedral. A great many myths centre around it both as a work of art and as a healing relic. Some say that it is the earliest painting in Perugia, transferred to its present place from the column of a Pagan temple wherean early Christian painted it, others that it is the work of Giannicola Manni. Concerning the miracles performed by it, the strings of silver hearts and offerings bear ample testimony. The painting is very charming, and we hear that Perugino loved it as a boy and drew his earliest inspirations from it(?). Our Lady stands against a crimson arras, her hands are opened out as though to bless, her gown is of a faded pink, her mantle blue and lined with the green of early spring. She is so calm, so young, and smiling, that one does not wonder at the crowds of worshippers which linger always round her shrine.

The chapel of the baptistery has some good Lombard stone work; and there are one or two interesting things in the sacristy; splendidintarsiaover the presses where the priests of Perugia store their gorgeous gowns of cloth of gold and silver, and a wonderful bit of earlygessowork in the inner chapel.

There is a big altar-piece by Signorelli in the chapel of S. Onofrio, which is interesting as being the only comparatively good piece of the master’s work in the whole of Perugia. The picture has suffered much from restoration, but the restorer contented himself with mauling the principal points; he neglected the detail, which is admirable throughout. The garlands of pink and white convolvulus behind the chair of our Lady are true to life; the Infant Christ carries a stem of lilies in his baby hand, and beside the long limbed angel who plays his lute at the Virgin’s feet stands a tumbler full of the freshest jasmine, whilst below him on the steps another glass is filled with fading violets. One marvels that a man who could so superbly draw every line and muscle of the human body, should care to linger over these frail details of the flowers.

In the left transept of the cathedral three of the popes are buried, and to anyone who has studied the history of the town and realised its connection with the power of Rome this otherwise rather dreary and uninteresting corner of the church will conjure up a host of half fantastic visions.[61]

The little porphyry urn on the right wall of the transept holds all the earthly remains of the three popes, Innocent III., Urban IV., and Martin IV., who all died at Perugia. A delightful legend is told concerning the death of Innocent. With his usual surprising seriousness the ingenuous Ciatti tells us that the following remarkable vision occurred to a certain Abbot of the Cistercian order who was living in the neighbourhood at the time of Innocent’s death:

“Now one hot summer day, overcome by heavy sleep, the Abbot withdrew himself under the shade of certain plants and there lay down to rest upon the soft green grass. No sooner had he closed his eyes in sleep than the eyes of his mind were opened and he saw Christ appearing in the east accompanied by His angelic court and seated on a throne. Looking to the west the Abbot then perceived a naked man, hurrying all out of breath towards the throne, and not even the weight of his pontifical mitre impeded him in this most rapid progress, for a fierce and terrifying dragon followed close behind him, and he was frightened and cried out: ‘Have mercy on me, oh thou most merciful God.’ Wherefore the dragon too lifted up his voice and cried: ‘Judge with justice, most high judge.’ Then the good Abbot awoke trembling with fear and much mystified by all that he had seen, and arriving at the gates of Perugia, he heard the heavy tolling of the bells and was met by the citizens who all were wailing with loud voices, crying out: PopeInnocent, Pope Innocent is dead.’ Then the worthy Abbot understood that it was Pope Innocent III. that he had seen, and he marvelled at the mercy of Almighty God who treats the humble and the powerful with equal law and mercy.”

Innocent was, of course, a very powerful Pope, and the historians of Perugia gloat over the fact that he did their city the honour to die in it, devoting whole pages of their books to this important subject.

Urban IV. is another remarkable figure in the Church of Rome, and it was during his stay at Perugia that he threw his mighty bomb which was to explode with such disastrous results upon the land of Italy. He was probably staying in the monastery of S. Pietro with his friend S. Thomas Aquinas when he sent the fatal letter which summoned Charles of Anjou down to Rome. “A terrible comet preceded Urban’s death which occurred in 1264,” says Mariotti. There was a report that Urban had been done to death by eating poisoned figs, but this is unfounded. The Pope lived in constant terror of poison, and by his incessant talk and letters on the subject had infected the minds of those around him.

Martin IV. is the last Pope buried in the Duomo. He often came to Perugia, and in 1285 he returned with the full intention of making a considerable stay there. But he died on Easter morning, having eaten a surfeit of eels; (it appears that Martin IV. was greedy of this particular delicacy). Dante records the fact in the “Purgatorio” (canto xxiv.), where Forese points the Pope out seated among the gluttons:

“ ... e quella facciaDi là da lui, più che l’altre trapunta,Ebbe la Santa Chiesa in le sue braccia:Dal Torso fu: e purga per digiunoL’anguille di Bolsena e la vernaccia.”

The following inscription is said to have been written over Martin’s tomb:

“Gaudent anguillae quod mortuus hic jacet ille,Qui quasi morte reas excruciabat eas.”

Perhaps it was with a view to expiate this very insulting epitaph that the Perugians, in spite of the canons of S. Lorenzo, who refused to contribute to the fund, erected a magnificent tomb for Martin later on. They employed G. Pisano for the purpose, but only a few fragments of his work remain. Mommaggiore pulled it down, as he pulled so many other things, and used its priceless ornaments to adorn his own palace at Porta Sole. The two small pulpits on either side of the high altar screen were made, it is said, from the fragments of the tomb, and also, perhaps, the marblePietàwith the blue background which hangs on the right as you pass back down the church.[62]

The bones of the three Popes have been terribly pulled about: buried and then unearthed, buried again, and changed. Innocent, according to most authorities, was buried in the cathedral. About 1376, when Martin’s tomb was destroyed by Mommaggiore, the bones of Innocent III. were taken from their resting-place and laid along with those of the other two popes in a sort of chest, on the top of a cupboard, in the sacristy of the new cathedral. Thence, in 1605, the chest was removed to another chapel by order of Bishop Comitoli. When it was opened the bodies of Martin and of Urban were found intact, with their mitres and their chasubles; but of the powerful Innocent III. only a few broken bones remained, wrapped up in a little packet. It is probable that when the three Popes were removed from their different tombs in 1376and stuffed into the chest, the memory of Innocent III. in connection with the temporal dominion of the popes in Perugia which he was the first to found, induced some persons present to violate his tomb. Be this as it may, all the bones of the Popes now rest together in the dull little porphyry urn, crowned with a brass tiara.[63]

In leaving the cathedral it would be well to glance at the tomb of Bishop Giovanni Andrea Baglioni, a beautiful bit of low relief in marble. Very lovely are the three small angels with the ribbons in their heavy hair, guarding the Baglioni arms, very alien from the spirit of that bloody race of men, the gentle figures of the women in the panels.

One great building in the square remains to be described, namely, the Canonica, or, as Bonazzi calls it, the “Vatican of Perugia.” Although a mere wreck of its former splendid self, this building is still one of the finest relics of the mediæval times that the city boasts of. It stands to the left of the Duomo—a great mass of bricks, with huge cavernous rooms inside, and walls some six to eight feet thick in places. The cloister is comparatively modern, but the beautiful open-air staircase which leads from it down into the Piazza Morlacchi is probably very much the same as it was in the days when the popes arrived to take a holiday in their loved Umbrian city.

In old days the magistrates and thePodestàshared the abode of the clergy, but, as may easily be imagined,

IN THE CLOISTERS OF THE CANONICA (OR SEMINARY)IN THE CLOISTERS OF THE CANONICA (OR SEMINARY)

this arrangement did not answer, and was, as Bonazzi tells us, the cause of most extreme contention between the canons of the Church and the councillors of State. The canons had a very comfortable time in the Canonica. “Professing to follow the rule of St Augustine,” says Bonazzi, “they had much to fear from the manifold terrors of conscience.” Their cellars must have been excessively well stocked, for on one occasion when thePodestà’sproperty was burning, the flames were quenched by wine: “To extinguish the flames, nothing would do save the immense cellars of the colossally rich Canonica.”

Of the visits of the popes to Perugia we have dealt elsewhere (see chapter ii.). It is enough to say that they often came to the Canonica; three of them died there, and there were five conclaves in the mysterious halls where the new popes were elected.

One beautiful story is told in the “Fioretti” about Gregory IX., who doubted of the miracles of S. Francis till the saint appeared in person and revealed the truth to him. There is little doubt that the vision occurred to the Pope as he slept or dreamed in his grand rooms at the back of the cathedral:—

“ ...Now let it be known that to Pope Gregory IX., who was a little doubtful concerning the wound in the side of St Francis, and according to what he himself relates, that the saint appeared one night, and lifting his right arm on high he showed the wound in his side, and asked to have a little phial fetched; and the Pope had it fetched and St Francis bade them place it under the wound in his side; and it seemed to the Pope as though truly the phial became filled even unto the brim with blood mixed up with water which issued from the wound, and from that time forward all doubt forsook him, and he, with the consent of all his cardinals, approved the holy miracles of St Francis.”

Thus the power of the Umbrian Saint penetrated this grim Umbrian building, and, appearing to the haughty Roman Pontiff, overcame him by the power of pure holiness, even as it had overcome so many furious passions in a century that was evil.

S. FRANCIS FROM THE STATUE OF DELLA ROBBIA AT S. MARIA DEGLI ANGELI, ASSISIS. FRANCIS FROM THE STATUE OF DELLA ROBBIA AT S. MARIA DEGLI ANGELI, ASSISI

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 mortarused 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 tobe—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.”

“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.”

“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 poisonousfunghi(mushrooms). How this myth originated it is not possible to say, but the figures withtheir 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.

PORTA MARZIAPORTA MARZIA

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

CHURCH OF S. ERCOLANO AND ARCHWAY IN THE ETRUSCAN WALLCHURCH 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 thecredoof 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 oflasche. 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 ofBuffalmacco; 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 prominentfigure 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 thesiege, 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.

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 begunearly 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 4000scudion 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, andperhaps 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, becauseshewas 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 Popereceived 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.”

DETAIL OF THE TOMB OF POPE BENEDICT XI. IN THE CHURCH OF S. DOMENICODETAIL 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 withcurtains 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.

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. Pietrois 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 buildingand 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 thecloisters. 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 lightningcontinued 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 goodPietàby 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 aPietàby 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 andits 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 theblood-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 areinfinitely 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 thenthey 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.)

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 theirsight 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 154A.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.

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