with nave and aisles, founded in the beginning of the 11th century by San Pietro Vincioli on the site of a building of the 6th century, and remarkable for its conspicuous spire, its ancient granite and marble columns, its walnut stall-work of 1535 by Stefano de’ Zambelli da Bergamo, and its numerous pictures (by Perugino, &c.). The oratory of S. Bernardino has an early Renaissance polychrome façade, richly sculptured, of 1457–1461, by Agostino d’Antonio di Duccio of Florence. S. Severo contains Raphael’s first independent fresco (1505), much damaged by restoration. The circular church of S. Angelo, with sixteen antique columns in the interior, probably dates from the middle of the 6th century. The university dates from 1307, and has faculties of law, science and medicine; it had 318 students in 1902–1903. It contains an important museum of Etruscan and Roman antiquities. Three miles to the S.S.E. the Etruscan necropolis of the ancient city was discovered in 1870. The large tomb of the Volumni (3rd century B.C.) hewn in the rock, with its carved cinerary urns, is interesting.
The ancient Perusia first appears in history as one of the twelve confederate cities of Etruria. It is first mentioned in the account of the war of 310 or 309 B.C. between the Etruscans and the Romans. It took, however, an important part in the rebellion of 295, and was reduced, with Vulsinii and Arretium, to seek for peace in the following year. In 216 and 205 it assisted Rome in the Hannibalic war, but afterwards it is not mentioned until 41–40 B.C., when L. Antonius took refuge there, and was reduced by Octavian after a long siege. A number of lead bullets used by slingers have been found in and around the city (Corpus inscr. lat. xi. 1212). The city was burnt, we are told, with the exception of the temples of Vulcan and Juno—the massive Etruscan terrace-walls, naturally, can hardly have suffered at all—and the town, with the territory for a mile round, was allowed to be occupied by whoever chose. It must have been rebuilt almost at once, for several bases exist, inscribed Augusto sacr(um) Perusia restituta; but, as we have seen, it did not become a colony until A.D. 251–253. It is hardly mentioned except by the geographers until the middle of the 6th century, when it was captured by Totila after a long siege. In the Lombard period it is spoken of as one of the principal cities of Tuscia. In the 9th century, with the consent of Charles the Great and Louis the Pious, it passed under the popes; but for many centuries the city continued to maintain an independent life, warring against many of the neighbouring lands and cities—Foligno, Assisi, Spoleto, Montepulciano, &c. It remained true for the most part to the Guelphs. On various occasions the popes found asylum within its walls, and it was the meeting-place of the conclaves which elected Honorius II. (1124), Honorius IV. (1285), Celestine V. (1294), and Clement V. (1305). But Perugia had no mind simply to subserve the papal interests. At the time of Rienzi’s unfortunate enterprise it sent ten ambassadors to pay him honour; and, when papal legates sought to coerce it by foreign soldiers, or to exact contributions, they met with vigorous resistance. In the 15th century power was at last concentrated in the Baglioni family, who, though they had no legal position, defied all other authority. Gian Paolo Baglioni was lured to Rome in 1520 and beheaded by Leo X.; and in 1534 Rodolfo, who had slain a papal legate, was defeated by Pier Luigi Farnese, and the city, captured and plundered by his soldiery, was deprived of its privileges. The citadel was begun six years later “ad coercendam Perusinorum audaciam.” In 1797 Perugia was occupied by the French; in 1832, 1838 and 1854 it was visited by earthquakes; in May 1849 it was seized by the Austrians, and, after a futile insurrection in 1859, it was finally united, along with the rest of Umbria, to Piedmont, in 1860.
See G. Conestabile, I Monumenti di Perugia etrusca e romana (Perugia, 1855); M. Symonds and L. Duff Gordon, Perugia (“Medieval Towns Series”), (1898); R. A. Gallenga Stuart, Perugia (Bergamo, 1905; W. Heywood, Hist. of Perugia (1910). (T. As.)
PERUGINO, PIETRO (1446–1524), whose correct family
name was Vannucci, Italian painter, was born in 1446 at Città della Pieve in Umbria, and belongs to the Umbrian school of painting. The name of Perugino came to him from Perugia, the chief city of the neighbourhood. Pietro was one of several children born to Cristoforo Vannucci, a member of a respectable family settled at Città della Pieve. Though respectable, they seem to have been poor, or else, for some reason or other, to have left Pietro uncared for at the opening of his career. Before he had completed his ninth year the boy was articled to a master, a painter at Perugia. Who this may have been is very uncertain;
the painter is spoken of as wholly mediocre, but sympathetic
for the great things in his art. Benedetto Bonfigli is generally
surmised; if he is rejected as being above mediocrity, either
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo or Niccolò da Foligno may possibly have
been the man. Pietro painted a little at Arezzo; thence he went
to the headquarters of art, Florence, and frequented the famous
Brancacci Chapel in the church of the Carmine. It appears
to be sufficiently established that he studied in the atelier of
Andrea del Verrocchio, where Leonardo de Vinci was also a
pupil. He may have learned perspective, in which he particularly
excelled for that period of art, from Piero de’ Franceschi.
The date of this first Florentine sojourn is by no means
settled; some authorities incline to make it as early as 1470.
while others, with perhaps better reason, postpone it till 1479.
Pietro at this time was extremely poor; he had no bed, but
slept on a chest for many months, and, bent upon making his
way, resolutely denied himself every creature comfort.
Gradually Perugino rose into notice, and became famous not only throughout Italy but even beyond. He was one of the earliest Italian painters to practise oil-painting, in which he evinced a depth and smoothness of tint, which elicited much remark; and in perspective he applied the novel rule of two centres of vision. Some of his early works were extensive frescoes for the Ingesati fathers in their convent, which was destroyed not many years afterwards in the course of the siege of Florence; he produced for them also many cartoons, which they executed with brilliant effect in stained glass. Though greedy for gain, his integrity was proof against temptation; and an amusing anecdote has survived of how the prior of the Ingesati doled out to him the costly colour of ultramarine, and how Perugino, constantly washing his brushes, obtained a surreptitious hoard of the pigment, which he finally restored to the prior to shame his stingy suspiciousness. A good specimen of his early style in tempera is the circular picture in the Louvre of the “Virgin and Child enthroned between Saints.”
Perugino returned from Florence to Perugia, and thence, towards 1483, he went to Rome. The painting of that part of the Sixtine Chapel which is now immortalized by Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” was assigned to him by the pope; he covered it with frescoes of the “Assumption,” the “Nativity,” and “Moses in the Bulrushes.” These works were ruthlessly destroyed to make a space for his successor’s more colossal genius, but other works by Perugino still remain in the Sixtine Chapel; “Moses and Zipporah” (often attributed to Signorelli), the “Baptism of Christ,” and “Christ giving the Keys to Peter.” Pinturicchio accompanied the greater Umbrian to Rome, and was made his partner, receiving a third of the profits; he may probably have done some of the Zipporah subject.
Pietro, now aged forty, must have left Rome after the completion of the Sixtine paintings in 1486, and in the autumn of that year he was in Florence. Here he figures by no means advantageously in a criminal court. In July 1487 he and another Perugian painter named Aulista di Angelo were convicted, on their own confession, of having in December waylaid with staves some one (the name does not appear) in the street near S. Pietro Maggiore. Perugino limited himself, in intention, to assault and battery, but Aulista had made up his mind for murder. The minor and more illustrious culprit was fined ten gold florins, and the major one exiled for life.
Between 1486 and 1499 Perugino resided chiefly in Florence, making one journey to Rome and several to Perugia. He was in many other parts of Italy from time to time. He had a regular shop in Florence, received a great number of commissions, and continued developing his practice as an oil-painter, his
