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Chap. VII. PIETRO PERUGINO. 199 principles, slowly developed throughout two centuries since Giotto, successfully applied the laws of compo sition, and added a calm tenderness to the gravity of the Florentine school; and, through his influence on Fra Bartolommeo and Raphael, replaced, as far as it was possible to do so, the pious mysticism that had perished with Angelico. The time indeed was one when no artist could hope to revive the simplicity of old convent art, when no reformer, were he talented or enthusiastic as Savonarola proved himself, could restore a religious spirit incompatible with the condition of society during the ebb of republican liberty; but it was still a time when a pleasing gentleness, an expression of purity in represent ing heart in conjunction with positive beauty, might be substituted for the deeper and more imposing sentiment of Giotto, Orcagna, Traini, and Fra Giovanni. When the nuns of S. Chiara, for whom the Pieta was finished, were in possession of it, a rich Florentine, Fran cesco del Pugliese, offered them threefold its price if they should consent to exchange it for a counterpart by Perugino himself. The offer was rejected, because the nuns ascertained from Yannucci that he did not think he could repeat it without failure. 1 He had probably not the cour age to copy a picture on which his own labour had been exclusively bestowed, and fearing that his pupils would not make a replica as good as the original, he preferred undertaking new subjects. He thus produced at intervals the frescos of S. M. Maria de’ Pazzi, which Rumohr describes as fully equal in composition, and expres sion to the Pieta of S. Chiara, 2 Christ in prayer on the Mount of Olives for the Gesuati, the Crucifixion for S. Girolamo delle Poverine at Florence, the Madonna with ing, right of Nicodemus, is changed in tone as well as the face ofMary Cleofas. 1 Vas. VI. 33. 2 These frescos can only be seen with the permission of the arch bishop of Florence which the au thors were unable to obtain, but see Rumohr ^(Forschungen II. 344), Vasari (VI. 45), and Alber- tini, Mem. p. 13.
