Volltext Seite (XML)
118 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Chap. V. We do not pretend to guess at the connection between Boccati and Girolamo; but the latter continued the art of Giovanni; and that art, if not in itself attractive, is still interesting as we follow it from Camerino through the Marches towards Ascoli, and see it mingling with that of Padua and Venice. The reader’s attention might still be arrested by fragments in the sacristy of S. Agostino at Monte S. Martino, 1 and by a church standard, with sub jects on both sides, in the crypt of the church of Sar- nano; 2 but the course of the narrative leads us onwards upon the spiral route described at the outset of these notices. We thus reach Gualdo Tadino on the Mediterranean side of the Appennine, and find there Matteo, who is a partner in Giovanni Boccati's modes of thought and exe cution; but who, at the same time, tends more faith fully to maintain the Umbrian style which was to culminate in Perugino. That he was a feeble artist not withstanding, modernizing, though perhaps hardly sur passing, the Lorenzos of S. Severino, may not be denied; but he naturally inclined towards the neighbouring draughts men of Foligno. There are no authentic panels by him in the town in which he was born, though one, dated 1462, is said to have existed there. His manner is ap parent in a S. Anna teaching the Virgin to read, a Virgin and saints, an Annunciation in S. Francesco, 3 and a Madonna in the Duomo, of Gualdo; 4 but a genuine and his sandals are loose on the ground. A bear licks his paw be hind the saint to the right. The distance is a rock in which a cave opens, and on the left, the distance recedes to a city and far horizon. 1 Here is a pinnacle with the crucified Saviour between the Vir gin and Evangelist in the same style as the altarpiece already de scribed. 2 On one side, the Annunciation with the Virgin’s head partly obli terated, on the other Christ cruci- between the Virgin and S. John, much scaled. Panel, on gold ground. 3 These are all in the choir and of very little importance. 4 This is in an elevated position on the high altar. A triptych much injured, assigned to Matteo, is said to exist at Nociano, two miles from Gualdo, and a Virgin between S. Roch and Sebastian in S. Pelle grino, three miles from the same town. The head of the Virgin in this last piece is said to be injured