Pinturicchio (Perugia, 1454–1513) was an Italian painter of the
Renaissance.
His full name was Bernardino di Betti, born in Perugia, son of Benedetto
or Betto di Blagio. He may have trained under lesser known Perugian
painters such as Bonfigli and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. According to Vasari,
Pinturrichio was a paid assistant of Perugino.
The works the Perugian Renaissance school are very similar; and paintings
by Perugino, Pinturicchio, Lo Spagna and a youngRaphael may often be
mistaken one for the other. In the execution of large frescoes, pupils and
assistants had a large share in the work, either in enlarging the master's
sketch to the full-sized cartoon, in transferring the cartoon to the wall,
or in painting backgrounds or accessories.
Work in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome
After assisting Perugino in his frescoes in the Sistine Chapel,
Pinturicchio was employed by various members of the Della Rovere family
and others to decorate a series of chapels in the church of S. Maria del
Popolo in Rome, where he appears to have worked from 1484, or earlier, to
1492. The earliest of these is an altarpiece of the Adoration of the
Shepherds, in the first chapel (from the west) on the south, built by
Cardinal Domenico della Rovere; a portrait of the cardinal is introduced
as the foremost of the kneeling shepherds. In the lunettes under the vault
Pinturicchio painted small scenes from the life of St Jerome.
The frescoes which he painted in the next chapel, built by Cardinal
Innocenzo Cibo, were destroyed in 1700, when the chapel was rebuilt by
Cardinal Alderano Cibo. The third chapel on the south is that of Giovanni
della Rovere, duke of Sora, nephew of Sixtus IV, and brother of Giuliano,
who was afterwards Pope Julius II. This contains a fine altarpiece of the
Madonna enthroned between Four Saints, and on the east side a very nobly
composed fresco of the Assumption of the Virgin. The vault and its
lunettes are richly decorated with small pictures of the life of the
Virgin, surrounded by graceful arabesques; and the dado is covered with
monochrome paintings of scenes from the lives of saints, medallions with
prophets, and very graceful and powerfully drawn female figures in full
length in which the influence of Signorelli may be traced.
In the fourth chapel, Pinturicchio painted the Four Latin Doctors in the
lunettes of the vault. Most of these frescoes while considerably injured
by damp, but suffered little from restoration. The last paintings
completed by Pinturicchio in this church were the frescoes on the vault
over the retro-choir, a very rich and well-designed piece of decorative
work, with main lines arranged to suit their surroundings in a very
skilful way. In the centre is an octagonal panel of the coronation oi the
Virgin, and round it medallions of the Four Evangeliststhe spaces between
them being filled up by reclining figures of the Four Sibyls. On each
pendentive is a figure of one of the Four Doctors enthroned under a niched
canopy. The bands which separate these pictures have elaborate arabesques
on a golc ground, and the whole is painted with broad and effective
touches, very telling when seen (as is necessarily the case) from a
considerable distance below. No finer specimen of the decora-ion of a
simple quadripartite vault can anywhere be seen.
Works in Vatican Library
In 1492 Pinturicchio was summoned to Orvieto, where he painted two
Prophets and two of the Doctors in the duomo. In the following year he
returned to Rome, and was employed by Pope Alexander VI (Borgia) to
decorate a suite of six rooms in the Vatican, which Alexander had just
built. These rooms, called after their founder the Appartamenti Borgia,
now form part of the Vatican library, and five of them still retain the
fine series of frescoes with which they were so skilfully decorated
Pinturicchio.
The upper part of the walls and vaults, not only covered with painting,
but further enriched with delicate stucco work in relief, are a
masterpiece of decorative design applied according to the truest
principles of mural ornamenta much better model for imitation in that
respect than the more celebrated Stanze of Raphael immediately over the
Borgia rooms. The main subjects are:
the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Magi, and the Resurrection
Scenes from the lives of St Catherine, St Antony and other saints
allegorical figures of music, arithmetic and the like
four figures in half length, with rich arabesques
figures of the planets, the occupations of the various months, and other
subjects
The sixth room was repainted by Perino del Vaga.
Though not without interruption, Pinturicchio, assisted by his pupils,
worked in these rooms from 1492 till 1498, when they were completed. His
other chief frescoes in Rome, still existing in a very genuine state, are
those in the Cappella Bufalini at the south-west of S Maria in Ara Coeli,
probably executed from 1497 to 1500. These are well-designed compositions,
noble in conception, and finished with much care and refinement. On the
altar wall is a grand painting of St Bernardino of Siena between two other
saints, crowned by angels; in the upper part is a figure of Christ in a
mandorla, surrounded by angel musicians; on the left wall is a large
fresco of the miracles done by the corpse of St Bernardino, very rich in
colour, and full of very carefully painted heads, some being portraits of
members of the Bufalini family, for whom these frescoes were executed.
One group of three females, the central figure with a child at her breast,
recalls the grace of Raphael's second manner. The composition of the main
group round the saint's corpse appears to have been suggested by Giotto's
painting of St Francis on his bier in Santa Croce at Florence. On the
vault are four noble figures of the Evangelists, usually attributed to
Luca Signorelli, but certainly, like the rest of the frescoes in this
chapel, by the hand of Pinturicchio. On the vault of the sacristy of S.
Cecilia in Trastevere, Pinturicchio painted the Almighty surrounded by the
Evangelists. During a visit to Orvieto in 1496 Pinturicchio painted two
more figures of the Latin Doctors in the choir of the duomo: now, like the
rest of his work at Orvieto, almost destroyed. For these he received fifty
gold ducats. In Umbria, his masterpiece is the Baglioni Chapel in the
church of S. Maria Maggiore in Spello.
Among his panel pictures the following are the most important. An
altarpiece for S. Maria de' Fossi at Perugia, painted in 1496-1498, now
moved to the picture gallery, is a Madonna enthroned among Saints,
graceful and sweet in expression, and very minutely painted; the wings of
the retable have standing figures of St Augustine and St Jerome; and the
preddla has paintings in miniature of the Annunciation and the
Evangelists. Another fine altarpiece, similar in delicacy of detail, and
probably painted about the same time, is that in the cathedral of San
Severino — the Madonna enthroned looks down towards the kneeling donor.
The angels at the sides in beauty of face and expression recall the manner
of Lorenzo di Credi or Da Vinci.
The Vatican picture gallery has the largest of Pinturicchio's panels —
the Coronation of the Virgin, with the apostles and other saints below.
Several well-executed portraits occur among the kneeling saints. The
Virgin, who kneels at Christ's feet to receive her crown, is a figure of
great tenderness and beauty, and the lower group is composed with great
skill and grace in arrangement. Other important panel paintings by
Pinturicchio exist: see Guattani, Quadri nell' apart. Borgia (Rome, 1820).
In 1504 he designed a mosaic floor panel for the Cathedral of Siena: the
Story of Fortuna, or the Hill of Virtue. This was executed by Paolo
Mannucci in 1506. On top of the panel, Knowledge hands the palm of victory
to Socrates.
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