Chap. VIII. BERNARDINO PiNTURtCCTIIO. ^57 be distinguished from a Perugian cotemporary, also called Bernardino, whose mediocre pictures are often confounded with his. Pinturicchio is the genuine representative of Perugian art as it was felt and carried on in the ateliers of Bon- figli and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. He never mastered the difficulties of oil medium, but remained almost invariably true to the system of tempera and to the customs of the old Umbrians. His Virgin and child in the collection of Sir Anthony Stirling in London is one of the first links that connects his manner with that of his predecessors. It is the earliest of his works with which we are ac quainted, a panel in which forms and types, style of draw ing, and handling, only differ so far from Fiorenzo’s, that they receive an additional polish, and combine more grace with greater accuracy of execution, better design with more pleasing colour. When Pinturicchio went to Rome, he did so as Peru- gino’s partner. Vasari says, that they laboured in com pany at the Sixtine, 1 and the probability of this state ment has already been discussed. As the chapel ap proached completion, perhaps before it was finished, Pin turicchio had gained accoss to Cardinal Domenico della Rovere, whose most pressing care after his elevation to the purple (1479)- had been to erect a palace in Borgo Vecchio, on the front of which his arms were painted by Pinturicchio. 1 His next object was the adornment of a chapel dedicated to S. Jerom, the first .of its kind in S. M. del Popolo which Sixtus 'the Fourth had begun re building, 1 on the plans of Baccio Pontelli. On the altar- ' Vas. V. 268. * Feb. 3. 1478. (o. s.) 3 Vas. V. 268. The palace was contiguous to that which Bra- mante afterwards built for Raphael on the Piazza Rusticucci. See Leo the Tenth’s brief ratifying the sale of Raphael’s house in 1520, a re- VOL. III. cord in which the exact position of Domenico’s palace is described. Giornale degli arcliiv. Tosc. ub. snp. vol. IV. 248—53. 4 Eeclesia S. M. do populo a Syxto III I fait ah ipsis fundamen- tis cum claustro instaurata.” . . . Albertini, opusc. ub. sup. p. 50. 17
