Part 7

We have here a very unusual background, reminding us of the Arabian desert,--tall, barren rocks; and against these the Virgin is seated. Her costume is very lovely, consisting of a red tunic cut square across the neck and finished with a broad band of gold embroidery, and a blue mantle lined with yellow. Over her blonde hair, which is arranged in the style favored by Italian ladies of fashion, waved and parted and falling down at the sides of the cheeks, a white veil is folded in intricate plaits and made to ripple gracefully down over the shoulders. Above this complicated head-dress is a golden _nimbus_. The Holy Child, resting on her lap, steadied by the Virgin’s hand and additionally supported by the graceful hand of the little Angel, is partly swathed in muslin. One of His little hands rests on His mother’s veil and the other reaches for a pomegranate,[10] which she is holding. The dress of the Angel is red bordered with ermine and the bottom of the tunic is edged with a deep gold band of Cufic lettering. The _nimbi_ are tooled in gold and that of the Holy Child is cruciform. The strong wings of the Angels soar up boldly above their heads and make a perfect balance to the rocks behind the Virgin.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Otto H. Kahn_

MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ANGELS

--_Benedetto Bonfigli_]

The picture is tempera on wood (31½ × 21 inches).

Bonfigli is regarded as the founder of the School of Perugia which became so famous through Perugino, who perpetuates the name of the town.

Little is known of Benedetto Bonfigli, who was born about 1425, in Perugia, and was buried there in the Church of St. Domenico in 1496. Bonfigli shows in his work the influences of Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, Camillo Boccatis, and Benozzo Gozzoli. Bonfigli was in Rome in 1453 working for Pope Nicholas V, and in the following year he was back in Perugia painting a series of frescoes for the Capella dei Priori in the Palazzo del Consiglio depicting _St. Louis of Toulouse and St. Ercolano_, which were unfinished at the time of his death. Bonfigli painted processional banners and small pictures as well as frescoes. Many of Bonfigli’s works are now in the Gallery at Perugia.

“As an artist Bonfigli scarcely ranks as high as Niccolò da Foligno, his fellow-pupil under Benozzo Gozzoli. He was a much more dependent person, but being more imitative, with the models of Fra Angelico or Benozzo before him, he at times painted exquisite things and by nature he was gifted with that sense of the charming wherewith Perugia was later to take the world captive. Some of the freshest and loveliest of all angel faces may be seen in Bonfigli’s altar-pieces and standards. His color has almost always that tint of gold which never fades from Umbrian art.”[11]

MADONNA AND CHILD.

_Perugino (1446–1523)._

_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay._

In red robe and blue mantle the Virgin appears seated three quarters to the left and supporting the Holy Child on her left knee with both hands. Her head is slightly inclined and the hair, parted above her forehead, is brushed plainly down either side and looped up rather curiously at the back and tied there by a narrow veil. The Holy Child looks away towards the left. Behind the figures is seen one of those delightful Umbrian landscapes made so famous by Perugino and Raphael.

This picture, an oil painting on panel (27¾ × 19½ inches), has an interesting pedigree. From the family of the Marquis of Villafranca it came into possession of the Marquis de la Romana from the Palace of Anglona, Madrid, and then belonged to the Collection of the Marquis de Villamajor, Madrid. The wife of the latter says:

“This painting of the _Madonna and Child_ by Perugino has been for many generations in my husband’s family. It comes from the family of the Marquises de Villafranca who lived in Italy in the Sixteenth Century and of which several members were Viceroys of Naples (Alvarez de Toledo). The Marquis of Romana, having acquired the Palace of the Prince d’Anglona in Madrid, assembled all the pictures and works of art inherited from his ancestors which were in the Palaces of Valencia, Palma de Mallorque, and in Italy, thus forming a fine and important Collection in which were paintings by Goya, Cameron, Ribera, Velasquez, and many paintings of the Italian, Flemish, and French Schools. On the death of the Marquis de la Romana, his son, the Marquis de Villamajor, received a part of this Collection (which was divided between him and his brothers), and this Perugino comes from the Marquis de Villamajor’s heritage.”

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay_

MADONNA AND CHILD

--_Perugino_]

Perugino was born at Città della Pieve, near Perugia, about 1446, and died (probably of the Plague), at Castello di Fontignano, also near Perugia, in 1523. His real name was Pietro Vannucci and he was also called Pier della Pieve; but he is known always and everywhere as Perugino from Perugia, where he spent his early life and learned his art. It is uncertain under whom he studied before he went to Florence, but he certainly assisted Piero della Francesca at Arezzo. At Florence, he worked in Verrocchio’s studio, having Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi for fellow-students. Then in 1475 he was commissioned to paint in the Palazzo Pubblico, Perugia. In 1481–1482 he was working in Rome in the Sistine Chapel with Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, and Signorelli. Of his four frescoes here only one remains, _Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter_; the other three were destroyed to make room for Michelangelo’s _Last Judgment_. Perugino also painted in the Vatican and remained about ten years in Rome. Then he returned to Florence and had a studio there and also in Perugia. Besides, he travelled about a great deal to execute commissions in various cities. In 1490, for instance, he was in Rome again painting for Cardinal della Rovere an altar-piece now in the Villa Albani; in 1494 he was in Venice and Cremona; and in 1496 in Pavia, working for “Il Moro,” Duke of Milan. The three principal pictures of the beautiful altar-piece that Perugino painted for the Certosa, or Carthusian Convent near Pavia--_The Virgin adoring the Infant Christ_; _Tobias and the Angel Raphael_; and the _Archangel Michael_--are now in the National Gallery, London.

In 1495 Perugino was again working in Perugia; and it was then that Raphael, a boy of about twelve, became his pupil. At this time Perugino was the most celebrated of all the Umbrian painters. His best work was accomplished between 1490 and 1505. To this period belongs _The Marriage of the Virgin_, now in the Museum of Caen, Normandy, a picture that Raphael very closely followed, but eclipsed in beauty, in his _Sposalizio_, now in the Brera, Milan.

About 1590 Perugino painted his famous frescoes in the Sala di Cambio, Perugia, in which he introduced his own portrait; and in 1505 he painted The _Triumph of Chastity_ for the Marchese Isabella of Mantua, which is now in the Louvre.

After another visit to Rome he worked principally in churches in the neighborhood of Perugia, the last of which is supposed to be _The Nativity_, painted for the Church of Fontignano (where he died), and which is now in the South Kensington Museum.

Perugino was one of the earliest of the Italians who mastered the use of oil, then a new medium. In his constant moving around and visiting so many important cities, Perugino had every opportunity of seeing what the other artists of his day were doing. However, although he worked with the latest materials, Perugino remained faithful to the style of art known as the Quattrocento, which before his death was being rapidly superseded by the Cinquecento, of which Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were the chief exponents. Like Piero della Francesca he also advanced the science of perspective. For a time Perugino adopted the Florentine style, especially with regard to composition; but eventually he developed his own manner of grace, softness, delicacy, tenderness of color, great expression in faces and figures, and his unusually charming landscapes.

Berenson speaks particularly of Perugino’s “space composition:”[12] and in this art “Perugino surpassed all who ever came before him, and indeed all who came after him, excepting, however, his own pupil, Raphael, by whom even he was left far behind. Perugino had a feeling for beauty in women, charm in young men, and dignity in the old, seldom surpassed before or since. Then there is a well-ordered seemliness, a sanctuary aloofness in all his people which makes them things apart, untouched, and pure. Great reserve also does much for him. Violent

## action he doubtless avoided because he felt himself unequal to the

task--indeed, so little did he ever master movement that his figures when walking dance on tiptoe and on their feet they never stand; but he as carefully kept away from unseemly expression of emotion. How refreshingly quiet are his _Crucifixions_ and _Entombments_! The still air is soundless and the people wail no more; a sigh inaudible, a look of yearning, and that is all. How soothing must such paintings have been after the din and turmoil and slaughter of Perugia, the bloodiest town in Italy! Can it be wondered that men, women, and children ran to see them? Nor yet is life so free from sordid cares and meaningless broils that we can forego such balm for the soul as Perugino brings.”

THE NICCOLINI MADONNA.

_Raphael (1483–1520)._

_Collection of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._

This picture came directly from the Niccolini Palace where it was purchased in 1780 by George Nassau, third Earl Cowper, who was at that time His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Court of Tuscany; and it was so prized that in order to get the picture out of Florence without any disturbance it had to be hidden in the lining of the Ambassador’s carriage. Another name for the picture is _The Cowper Madonna of 1508_. The picture now comes from the Collection of Lady Desborough, of Panshanger, Hertfordshire, who inherited it from her brother, Francis Thomas, seventh Earl Cowper.

The painting, an oil on panel (30½ × 22 inches), represents the Madonna seated in the open air in a dark, rose-red robe with long close-fitting undersleeves of yellow-green, ultramarine-blue mantle, and diaphanous veil. Around the neck of the dress and the hem of the mantle what appears to be a decorative band of golden embroidery is really the signature of the painter “M(D or CCCC)VIII. R. U. Pin,” meaning 1508 Raphael of Urbino Pinxit. And, by the way, is it not possible that Sir Joshua Reynolds got the idea from this picture of painting his name on the robe of _Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse_? It will be remembered that Mrs. Siddons sat for that magnificent portrait in 1784. The _Niccolini Madonna_ was bought by Earl Cowper in 1780 and, undoubtedly, Sir Joshua was very familiar with it. Moreover, at this date, Raphael’s masterpiece was also very fresh in the mind of the English picture-world.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._

THE NICCOLINI MADONNA

--_Raphael_]

The Holy Child is seated on a white cushion in the Virgin’s lap gently supported by her hand, which also lightly holds an end of her floating veil. The suggestion of a light breeze rippling the veil is an exquisite thought. The _nimbi_ of both Mother and Child are very delicate. The background consists of a blue sky.

It is very interesting to compare this picture with the other _Cowper Madonna_ and on doing so we find that the same model was used for the Child, although the women are different. The hand of the _Small Cowper Madonna_ is noticeably more refined than the hand in the _Niccolini Madonna_, yet, on the whole, the model used for the _Niccolini Madonna_ seems to be of a slightly higher social status. In the latter, we find the plucked eyebrows and forehead which Raphael’s taste has softened by the hair, lightly blown about, like the veil, by the breeze.

The _Niccolini Madonna_ was one of the last pictures painted by Raphael in Florence, as he went to Rome in 1508, the date given on this painting. It may be noted here that the _Madonna del Granduca_ (which belonged to the Grand Duke Ferdinand III, who carried it with him wherever he went), was the first picture Raphael painted in Florence.

The _Madonna del Cardellino_ (of the Goldfinch), in the Uffizi, and _La Belle Jardinière_ (in the Louvre), also date from the Florentine period--painted when Raphael was about twenty-five,--which seems almost incredible.

THE SMALL COWPER MADONNA.

_Raphael (1483–1520)._

_Collection of Mr. Joseph E. Widener._

This Madonna was painted in 1505, soon after the _Granduca Madonna_ (now in the Pitti). It was purchased in Florence about 1780 by Lord Cowper and was one of the ornaments of his Collection at Panshanger.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Joseph E. Widener_

THE SMALL COWPER MADONNA

--_Raphael_]

The Madonna is seated on a stone bench and wears a red dress and a mantle of blue lined with green. The Holy Child throws His arms lovingly around His mother’s neck and steadies Himself by planting His left foot against her right hand. The hair of both mother and Child are blonde and encircled by a thin golden _nimbus_. The eyes are, in both subjects, of a warm and deep brown. A lovely Umbrian landscape carries us many miles away to the left; and nearer the figures on the right, there appears a building, identified as San Bernardino, a Franciscan Convent near Urbino.

The picture is painted on wood (23 × 17 inches). The original drawing is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

“And now we are face to face with the most famous and beloved name in modern art--Raphael Sanzio. Raphael was endowed with a visual imagination, which has never even been rivalled for range, sweep, and sanity. When it has been surpassed, it has been at single points and by artists of more concentrated genius. Thus gifted and coming at a time when form had, for its own sake, been recovered by the Naturalists and the essential artists, when the visual imagery, of at least the Italian world, had already suffered along certain lines, the transformation from the Mediæval into what ever since has been for all of us the _modern_, when the ideals of the Renaissance were for an ineffable instant standing complete, Raphael, filtering and rendering lucid and pure all that had passed through him to make him what he was, set himself the task of dowering the modern world with the images that to this day, despite the turbulent rebellion and morose secession of recent years, embody for the great number of cultivated men their spiritual ideals and their spiritual aspirations. ‘_Belle comme une madonne de Raphael_’ is, among the most artistic people in Europe, still the highest praise that can be given to female beauty. And, in sooth, where shall one find greater purity, more utter loveliness than in the _Granduca Madonna_, or a sublimer apparition of woman than appeared to St. Sixtus?

“When looking at the _Granduca Madonna_, has it ever occurred to you to note that the whole of her figure was not there? So perfect is the arrangement that the attention is entirely absorbed by the grouping of the heads, the balance of the Virgin’s draped arm and the Child’s body. You are not allowed to ask yourself how the figure ends. And observe how it holds its own, easily poised, in the panel which is just large enough to contain it without crowding, without suggesting room for aught besides.

“But great as is the pleasure in a single group perfectly filling a mere panel, it is far greater when a group dominates a landscape. Raphael tried several times to obtain this effect--as in the _Madonna del Cardellino_, or the _Madonna del Prato_, but he attained to supreme success once only--in the _Belle Jardinière_. Here you have the full negation of the _plein-air_ treatment of the figure. The Madonna is under a domed sky, and she fills it completely, as subtly as in the _Granduca_ panel, but here it is the whole out-of-doors, the universe, and a human being _supereminent_ over it. What a scale is suggested! Surely the spiritual relation between man and his environment is here given in the only way man--unless he becomes barbarized by decay or non-humanized by science--will ever feel it. And not what man knows but what man feels, concerns art. All else is science.”

Raphael Santi--everybody’s Raphael,--best beloved of all painters, was born in Urbino in 1483, the day unknown. He was the son of Giovanni Santi, a painter, and was first taught by him. Then it is supposed that he studied under Evangelista di Pian di Meleto, with whom he painted an altar-piece and worked afterwards with Evangelista’s partner, Timoteo Viti. Next we find him assisting Perugino at Perugia and also Pintoricchio. In 1504 he went to Florence and fell under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolommeo. During his four years in Florence, Raphael painted a number of important works including the _Terranuova Madonna_ (Berlin Museum); the _Small Cowper Madonna_ and the _Niccolini Madonna_ (on page 87 and page 85); the _Madonna del Cardellino_ (Uffizi); the _Madonna in the Meadow_ (Belvedere, Vienna); _La Belle Jardinière_ (Louvre); and a number of portraits including the famous self-portrait (Uffizi). He was but twenty-five! Called to Rome in 1508 to decorate the Stanze in the Vatican this immense work occupied him until 1514. In the meantime, he was given the decoration of the Loggia, but while he made the designs, the actual painting of “Raphael’s Bible” was done by his pupils. In the pressure of all this stupendous work he found time to paint _The Triumph of Galatea_ for Agostino Chigi in the Farnesina Palace, _The Madonna della Seggiola_ (Pitti), the _Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami_ and many portraits. In 1516 he painted _Baldassare Castiglione_ (Louvre); in 1517 the _Madonna di San Sisto_, for the convent of San Sisto at Piacenza (Dresden Gallery) and the _St. Cecilia_ (Bologna Gallery). In 1518 he began _The Transfiguration_, which was unfinished at the time of his death and which was placed beside his bier.

All this magnificent work which expresses such high creative power and such vast technical knowledge is the performance of a young man of twenty-seven! Had he painted but three pictures, _La Belle Jardinière_, the _Madonna of the Chair_, and the _Sistine Madonna_, Raphael’s place would have been with the greatest of the immortals. Taking his entire list of works into consideration Raphael, perhaps, comes nearer than any other painter to the term “inspired.”

AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

_Raphael (1483–1520)._

_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay._

This panel (9½ × 11 inches), was one of four belonging to the Predella of the large altar-piece representing the _Madonna Enthroned with Saints_, painted by Raphael in 1505 for the Nuns of S. Antonio, Perugia. It is, therefore, one of Raphael’s early works.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay_

AGONY IN THE GARDEN

--_Raphael_]

The Saviour in a grey robe kneels in prayer at the right near a tree and towards him an Angel holding a chalice descends from the clouds. The other characters are sleeping: St. John the Evangelist in a green and red robe lies upon a grassy bank at the left; St. Peter reclines against a grassy mound at the right; and St. James, in a green and yellow robe, has propped himself against the tree in the centre. Trees and low-lying hills form the background. All four panels forming the Predella were purchased from the Nuns of St. Anthony in 1663 by Christina, Queen of Sweden. This particular panel--_The Agony in the Garden_--passed from the Queen of Sweden’s possession into that of Cardinal Azzolini, and thence into the Collection of Don Livio Odescalchi, whose heirs sold it to the Regent, the Duc d’Orleans. The Orleans Collection was sold in London in 1798 and _The Agony in the Garden_ then went into the Bryant Collection. Lord Eldin bought it next and subsequently the poet, Samuel Rogers, at whose sale in 1856 the panel was purchased by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. After the sale of the W. Burdett-Coutts Collection at Christie’s in 1917, the panel found its way to New York. The other three panels are: _St. Anthony of Padua and St. Francis_ (now in the Dulwich Gallery); the _Procession to Calvary_ (in the National Gallery, London); and a _Pietà_ (in the Gardner Collection, Boston).

The altar-piece--_The Madonna Enthroned with Saints_--was presented to the Metropolitan Museum by the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.

_NORTH ITALIAN_

The greatest painters of Northern Italy were Altichiero Altichieri (1330?–1395), Pisanello (1397–1455), Domenico Morone (1442–1503), Liberale (1451–1536), Girolamo dai Libri (1474–1503), and Paolo Veronese (1528–1588), in Verona; Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), in Padua; and Cosimo Tura (1420?–1495), in Ferrara; Vincenzo Foppa (1427?–1515–16), Bramante da Milano (died about 1470), Bartolommeo Suardi, called Bramantino (1450?–1536), and Bernardino Luini (1475?–1531–2), in Milan; Lorenzo Costa (1460?–1535), and Francesco Francia (1450?–1517), in Bologna; Moretto da Brescia (1498–1554), and Giambattista Moroni (1520–5–1578), in Brescia; and Antonio Allegri, better known as Correggio (1494–1534), in Parma.

The towns of Northern Italy were more or less influenced by Florentine artists who worked in various towns and who naturally attracted pupils and local assistants. Painters travelled too, a great deal, wishing, as they do now, to see the famous works of painters both living and dead and of learning the newest and latest technique. Lords and dukes also attracted celebrated painters to their courts; and, if they liked them, bestowed lavish orders for portraits, for their relatives and friends; small devotional pictures for their own cabinets; wall-paintings for their villas; and altar-pieces and frescoes for their local churches or cathedrals.

Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, sent to Lorenzo de’ Medici on two or three occasions to recommend painters from Florence for work that he wished to have done. The great intellectual and artistic activity of Lombardy at the end of the Fifteenth Century was largely owing to Lodovico Sforza, whose Court was one of the most brilliant of the day. “Here,” an enthusiastic contemporary exclaimed, “here the muses of poetry and the masters of sculpture reigned supreme; here came the most distinguished painters from distant regions; here, night and day, were heard sounds of such sweet singing and such delicious harmonies of music that they seemed to descend from heaven itself.”

New churches and palaces arose in Milan, Pavia, Como, Cremona, Piacenza, Lugano, and other places, and artists were necessary for decorating them. In 1496, Leonardo having all he could do, Lodovico wrote to Florence for a description of the best painters of the day. This is what he received; and it is very interesting as showing the estimation of the men mentioned while they were living:

“Sandro de Botticello--a most excellent master, both in panel and wall-painting. His figures have a manly air and are admirable in conception and proportion.

“Filippino di Frati Filippo--an excellent disciple of the above-named and a son of the rarest master of our times. His heads have a gentler and more suave air; but, we are inclined to think, less art.

“Il Perugino--a rare and singular artist, most excellent in wall-painting. His faces have an air of the most angelic sweetness.

“Domenico de Girlandaio--a good master in panels and a better one in wall-painting. His figures are good and he is an industrious and active master who produces much work.

“All of these masters have given proof of their excellence in the Chapel of Pope Sixtus, excepting Filippino, and also in the Spedaletto of the Magnificent Laurentio, and their merit is almost equal.[13]