Chap. VIII. BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO.’ 267 layers of thick substance and rough surface. The flesh is stippled over verde, and enlivened even at the outlines with red according to the oldest methods of tempera. Pinturicchio deserves, and is likely to hold no higher place in history than Spagna. Both were of the same capacity. But Spagna, being younger, was enabled to master the changes in the (echnica which Pinturicchio neglected, and was not precluded by habit from imitating Raphael. In 1495, Bernardino was repaid for the industry and skill exhibited at the Vatican and in the Castel S. Angelo by a lease of lands at Chiugi near Perugia, subject to an annual payment of thirty “corbe” of grain, which was commuted at a subsequent period. 1 During this or a later stay, he covered a chapel at Araceli with frescos in a purer and better style than any other that he had brought to completion in Rome. The date of these is not ascertained, but the chapel is said to have been founded to solemnize the fortunate extinction of a feud between two families. 2 It is called Cappella Bufalini to this day, and may have been adorned at the request of some one of that house holding an office in Rome, as the Bufalini did who signs his name to the decree of 1 The deed of gift is in Vermi- glioli’s appendix (p. VIII). It is. dated in 1495 without particulars of day or month. The deed of com mutation in the same author (p. X). Pinturicchio’s complaint that the yearly payment of thirty “eorbe” is too heavy is recited, and admitted as well founded on the part of a “faithful and devoted servant of Alexander and the j church, to whom a recompense is | due for his art in painting and adorning our apostolic palace and our residence in arc. castri An gel i”. The commutation is to a yearly payment for three years of two pounds of wax. It is dated July 28 lh 1497. A further brief of Oct. 24 th , 1497 is issued to enforce the commutation ignored by the papal authorities on the spot. A third brief of May lG lh 1498 con firms possession of the land and tenements near Perugia (Chiugi), even in the event of non payment (Verm. app. XIV and XXV). A fourth brief of Febr. 5 th 1499 ex tends the commutation of July 1497 for a further term of years (lb. ib. XVII). 2 I lattner and Bunsen, Beschrei- bung Rom’s ub. sup. 111. 1. Abtli. p. 355.
