Chap. VII. PIETRO PERUGINO. 175 he produced the ruined frescos of Cerqueto. 1 Iiis name had become familiar at Florence in 1482;'- and he was allowed at that time to compete with Ghirlandaio, Botti celli, and others, in the Palazzo Pubblico. It is true that he did not carry out his commission which was revoked in favour of Filippino. 3 But it is not possible to say where he^was employed even then. If it should be asked what piece amongst those of continental gal leries best illustrates his early style, one might choose the round of the Virgin and child enthroned between saints in a landscape; a tempera panel at the Louvre. 4 A picture of this kind, if presented to a Florentine at the close of the fifteenth century, would undoubtedly have been admired as embodying the carefulness and finish and the devotional resignation of Umbrian types with a most attractive freshness. 5 To us it represents Perugino in his ascending period, a genuine painter of Perugia still, but fortunate in having instilled a new life and beauty into the art of his countrymen. Conventional and quaint as it is to see the Virgin in rich clothing, seated on a throne partitioned off from a pleasant wilderness by pa rapets of stone; to watch two angels praying behind in 1 We have not visited Cerqueto, but nearly a century lias expired since Orsini ascertained that there was nothing remaining of Perugi- no’s work except a solitary figure of S. Sebastian in the church of the village, and a fresco in a taber nacle representing the Virgin and child between S. Lucy and another saint, with a figure of Scsevola and a sacrifice in the side walls. In Orsha's own time the inscription in the church was only known by an attested copy: “S. popul. de Cerqueto a fatta faro questa eap- pella A. D. Maria Madalena per C. II. da peste gi usci iiberare Ca- vandoli da le Hoscie. D. tal pena eusigli piaecia cuq. H. V. operare che mi e semp. no abbia ad seam- pare e tntti qlli C. II. in lei AN. devotion. AD. laude di Dio quisto sermone. Petrus Perusinus pinxit M.C.C.C.C.LXXVIH”. (Orsini, vita di P. P. ub. sup. p. 204.) 2 It is probable that Perugino came to Florence in 1479. Vasari says that he arrived there “parti- tosi dalle estreme calamity diPeru- gia”, and just at this time, war raged in Umbria between the Pa pal party and the Florentines. 3 See the records in Gaye (Car- teggio I. 578). 4 Louvre, No. 442, and previous ly in the royal collection at the Hague, and in the Corsini palace at Home. 5 “E bene gli venne fatto (that Perugino settled at Florence) con oid sia che al suo tempo le cose della maniera sua furono tenute in pregio grandissimo”. (Vasari, VI. 32).
