Volltext Seite (XML)
170 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Chap. VII. CHAPTER Vir. PIETRO PERUGINO. We are accustomed to think of Pietro Perugino as humbly connected and inured at the tenderest age to pri vation; but he was, without any doubt, of a respectable family, a branch of which enjoyed the freedom of Pe rugia in the early part of the fifteenth century. 1 His father, Christoforo Vannucci, lived at Citta della Pieve, and we learn from the hearth-register of that village that Pietro was one of several children, and that he was born in 1446. 2 In those days, when small peasant proprietors clung to the shelter of feudal towers, and had no certainty of pro tection from the inroads of predatory neighbours, it may have been a hard task for the father of a numerous fa mily to dispose of his sons so as to secure to them a decent and respectable future. He would naturally send his younger boys to the nearest town, and if ho had the means, apprentice them. Pietro Perugino left the paternal home before he was nine years old, and was articled to a master at Perugia. 3 1 Mariotti, Lett. Pitt. lib. p. 121. sup. 2 The root of the Vannucci fami ly compiled from the records at Citti della Pieve byMarchese Giu seppe della Fargna, is given in the appendix to IS. Orsini’s Vita &c. di Pietro Perugino. 8. 1804. pp.236.7. 3 His name is no longer on the hearth register of Citta della Pieve for 1455. (Sec della Fargna in Or- sini, ub. sup. pp. 236. 7.) That he was apprenticed to a Perugian painter, is stated by Vas. (VI. 30). Yet his father might have intrusted him, had he chosen, to a local ar tist. There is a Crucifixion in a very dark corner of the church of Pacciano respecting which a record (p. 150 of the “protocolli” 0 f tj, e