BERNARDINO RINTURICCHIO. Pinturicchio, the partner of Pietro Perugino, has been described by Vasari with unusual bitterness as more fa voured by fortune than gifted by nature or education. 1 Rumohr mitigates the severity of this judgment, at the expense of Pinturicchio’s character, and says, we must discriminate between the fresh creations of his early time, and the empty dexterity of a later period in which every thing is sacrified to the lucre of gain. 2 Yet, his youthful productions are missing and there are no clear traces of works undertaken on his sole account previous to the completion of the Sixtine chapel. 3 No certainty is attain able regarding his birth, unless we accept Vasari’s state ment that he was fifty-nine years of age when he died. 4 Assuming this, he was born in 1454, and his independ ent career began at thirty, lie was christened Bernardino, to which were added Betti (Benedicti) Biagi; but his ac quaintance often called him Sordiccliio because of a deafness and the paltriness of his appearance. 3 He was best known, however, as Pinturicchio; and he probably commended the use of this alias, in order that he might 1 Vas. V. 264. 2 Rumohr (Forsch. ub. sup. II. 831). 3 Kosini(stor. (lella Pitt. ub. sup. III. 182) assigns to Pinturicchio’s early time a figure of S.Ansano inS. Antonio e Jacopo (S. Caterina) at Assisi. This figure and two others, near a fresco representing an inci dent from the life of S. James, are however by a painter who lived after Pinturicchio (see antea p. 124 in Pietro Antonio). 4 Vas. V. 274. 5 Francesco Maturanzio, cliron. Verm, vita ub. sup. 29.
