The Story of Perugia
by Margaret Symonds · English · Gutenberg #46732 · 569,415 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Story of Perugia
Author: Margaret Symonds
Lina Duff Gordon
Illustrator: Helen M. James
Release date: August 30, 2014 [eBook #46732]
Most recently updated: November 28, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF PERUGIA ***
Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
_The Story of Perugia_
_All rights reserved_
_First Edition, February 1898_
_Second Edition, December 1898_
_Third Edition, April 1900_
_Fourth Edition, May 1901_
[Illustration: _Perugino._]
_The Story of_ Perugia
_by Margaret Symonds
and Lina Duff Gordon_
_Illustrated by M. Helen James_
[Illustration]
_London: =J. M. Dent & Co.=_
_Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street_
_Covent Garden, W.C._ 1901
PREFACE
When but a little while ago we undertook to write a "guide book" to one
of the better known towns of Central Italy, we realised perhaps
imperfectly how wide and full was the field of work which lay before us.
The "story" of Perugia is, like the story of nearly all Italian towns,
as full and varied as the story of a nation. Every side-light of history
is cast upon it, and nearly every phase of man's policy and art
reflected on its monuments. To do justice to so grand a pageant in a
narrow space of time and binding was, we may fairly plead, no easy task;
and now that the work is done, and the proofs returned to the printer,
we are left with an inevitable regret; for it has been impossible for us
to retain in shortened sentences and cramped description the charm of
all the tales and chronicles which we ourselves found necessary reading
for a full knowledge of so wide a subject.
If this small book have any claim to merit it is greatly due to the
faithful and ungrudging help rendered to its authors throughout their
study, by one true guide; by many old friends; and by the inhabitants of
the town whose name it bears for title. We can never adequately express
our sense of gratitude to the people of Perugia, to whom we came as
utter strangers, but who received us with such great courtesy and
kindness as to make our stay and study in their midst a pleasure as well
as an education.
Our book is intended for the general traveller rather than for the
student. We have offered no criticism, and have quoted whenever we could
from the pages of contemporary chronicles. We have dealt with Perugia as
with the heroine of a novel, describing her particular progress, and not
confounding it with that of neighbour towns, equally important in their
way, and each struggling, as perhaps only the cities of Italy knew how
to struggle, towards an individual supremacy in a state lacerated by
foreign wars and policies.
In dealing with one of the most vivid points in the history of the
town--the Rule of the Nobles--we have, with some diffidence,
incorporated into our narrative the words of one who had already drawn
his description of the subject straight from the original source,
treating it with such a powerful sympathy as it would have been
impossible for us to rival. For further knowledge of this terrible
period we can but refer the student to the chronicle of Matarazzo.
(_Archivio Storico_, vol. xvi. part 2.)
With the art of Umbria we have dealt only shortly, and from the point of
view of sentiment rather than that of criticism. For a severe and
thorough knowledge of the technique and use of colours employed by the
men who lived through such scenes as we have described in chapters II.
and III. we must refer the reader to the works of other authors. For our
dates, and facts in reference to art, we have relied on Kugler, Crowe
and Cavalcaselle, Rio, Vasari and the local writers, Mariotti,
Lupatelli, Mezzanotte, etc.
It remains to give a list of the books which we have consulted for the
history. Amongst these are the Perugian chronicles contained in the
_Archivio Storico d'Italia_; Graziani, Matarazzo, Frolliere, and
Bontempi; Fabretti's chronicles of Perugia, and his "_Vita dei
Condottieri, etc._"; and the local histories of Ciatti, Pellini,
Bartoli, Mariotti, and Bonazzi. Villani and Sismondi have been
consulted; Creighton's "_History of the Papacy during the Reformation_,"
and von Ranke's "_History of the Popes_."
Of the purely local histories mentioned above Bonazzi's is the most
important. His two bulky volumes are excellent reading in spite of his
sarcastic and often unjust bitterness against the clerical party. A
number of local pamphlets, the names of whose authors we cannot here
enumerate, have been used for various details, together with other books
on a variety of subjects, such as Dennis' "_Etruria_," Broussole's
"_Pélerinages Ombriens_," Hodgkin's "_Italy and her Invaders_," etc.,
etc.
When all is told, by far the most valuable and trustworthy authority on
Perugian matters is Annibale Mariotti. A local gossip who combines with
his gossiping qualities an exquisite sense of humour, and a real genius
for investigation in matters relating to his native town, is the person
of all others from whom to learn its actual life and history. Mariotti
is an eminent specimen of this class of writers, and no one who is
anxious to understand the spirit of Perugia should omit a careful study
of his works on the _Popes_, the _People_, and the _Painters_ of
Perugia.
For personal help received we have the satisfaction of offering in this
place our sincere thanks to Cav. Giuseppe Bellucci, professor at the
University of Perugia, whose wise and kindly counsel has led us
throughout to an understanding of countless points which must, without
him, have remained unnoticed or obscure. Our notes on the museum are
practically his own. We would mention also with grateful thanks Dr
Marzio Romitelli, Arcidiacono of the cathedral of Perugia, who
generously opened his library to us, and many of whose suggestions have
been of service to us. To Count Vincenzo Ansidei, head of the Perugian
library, our sincere thanks are offered here.
We must further acknowledge the help of Signor Novelli of Perugia; of
Mrs Ross, Mr Hayllar, and Cav. Bruschi, head of the Marucelliana Library
at Florence. Lastly, of Mr Walter Leaf and Mr Sidney Colvin in the
revision of proofs.
The comfort of our quarters in the Hotel Brufani needs no description to
most Italian travellers, who are already familiar with that delightful
house; but we are glad to mention here our appreciation of the care and
thoughtful kindness shown to us by our English hostess in the Umbrian
town. The courtesy received by us at headquarters from the Prefect of
Umbria and Baroness Ferrari his wife, made our stay, from a purely
social point of view, both easy and delightful.
To close these prefatory notes we can but say how sincerely we trust
that the following pages may serve only as a preparation, in more
capable hands, for further and far fuller records of a city whose
history is as enthralling to the student of men as its pictures and
position must ever be to the lover of what is beautiful in nature and in
art.
_August 21st, 1897._
AM HOF. DAVOS.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
_The earliest Origins of Perugia and Growth of the City_ 1
CHAPTER II
_The Condottieri and the Rise of the Nobles_ 33
CHAPTER III
_The Baglioni. Paul III. and last years of the
City_ 58
CHAPTER IV
_The City of Perugia_ 82
CHAPTER V
_Palazzo Pubblico, The Fountain and the Duomo_ 109
CHAPTER VI
_Fortress of Paul III.--S. Ercolano--S.
Domenico--S. Pietro--S. Costanzo_ 151
CHAPTER VII
_Piazza del Papa, S. Severo, Porta Sole, S.
Agostino and S. Francesco al Monte_ 178
CHAPTER VIII
_Via dei Priori--Perugino's House--Madonna
della Luce, S. Bernardino and S. Francesco_ 201
CHAPTER IX
_Pietro Perugino and the Cambio_ 216
CHAPTER X
_The Pinacoteca_ 230
CHAPTER XI
_The Museum and Tomb of the Volumnii_ 267
CHAPTER XII
_In Umbria_ 290
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
_Via del Aquedotto, showing Tower of the Cathedral_ 5
_Lombard Arch on the Church of S. Agata_ 14
_Palazzo Baldeschi_ 23
_Arms of Perugia_ 32
_Via delle Stalle_ 39
_Niccolò Piccinino_ 53
_Palazzo Pubblico_ 57
_Fortress of Paul III., showing the Upper Part,
now occupied by the Prefettura, etc., and
the Lower Wing, which covered the site of
the present Piazza D'Armi_ 77
_Perugia from the Road to the Campo Santo_ 83
_Etruscan Arch, Porta Eburnea_ 87
_Mediæval Staircase in the Via Bartolo_ 89
_Piazza Sopramuro, showing the Palace of the
Capitano del Popolo and the Buildings of
the first University of Perugia_ 101
_Convent of Monte Luce_ 107
_Piazza di S. Lorenzo, seen from under the
Arches of the Palazzo Pubblico_ 111
_Remains of the First Palazzo dei Priori in the
Via del Verzaro_ 114
_Oldest part of the Palazzo Pubblico_ 121
_The Reaper. Detail in a panel on the Fountain_ 127
_Geometry. Detail in a panel on the Fountain_ 131
_On the Steps of the Cathedral_ 134
_In the Cloisters of the Canonica (or Seminary)_ 147
_S. Francis_ 150
_Porta Marzia_ 155
_Church of S. Ercolano and Archway in the
Etruscan Wall_ 157
_Detail of the Tomb of Pope Benedict XI. in the
Church of S. Domenico_ 166
_House in the Via Pernice_ 179
_Arco d'Augusto_ 189
_S. Agostino and Porta Bulagajo_ 191
_Church of S. Angelo_ 195
_The Old Collegio dei Notari, said to be the studio
of Perugino_ 202
_Torre degli Scirri_ 203
_Etruscan Arch of S. Luca_ 205
_Mercy. Detail on Façade of the Oratory of
S. Bernardino_ 209
_Perugino: Madonna and Patron Saints of Perugia,
painted for the Magistrates' Chapel at
Perugia, now in the Vatican at Rome_ 221
_First Translation of the Body of S. Ercolano
(Fresco in the Pinacoteca of Perugia)_ 243
_Gonfalone of the Annunciation attributed to Niccolò
Alunno_ 249
_Adoration of the Shepherds. By Fiorenzo di
Lorenzo_ 253
_Via Della Pera under the Aqueduct on the way
to the University_ 269
_Etruscan Mirror in Guadabassi Collection_ 280
_Tomb of Aruns Volumnius_ 287
_The Temple of Clitumnus_ 301
_Narni (with Angelo Inn in foreground)_ 307
The Story of Perugia
CHAPTER I
_The earliest Origins of Perugia and growth of the City_
Sometimes in a street or in a country road we meet an unknown person who
seems to us wonderfully and inexplicably attractive. Perhaps we only
catch a passing vision; the face, the figure passes us, oftener than not
we never meet again, and even the memory of the vision which seemed so
full of life, so strong, and so enduring, passes with the years, and we
forget. But had we only tried a little, it would, in almost every
instance, have been possible to follow the figure up, to learn what we
wanted to know about it, to understand the reason why the face was full
of meaning to us, and what it was which went before and gave the mouth
its passion, the eyes their pain and sweetness. In nine cases out of ten
we can, in this nineteenth century, discover the birth and parentage,
the loves and hates, of any human being we may wish to know. But this is
not the way with cities, and although they attract us in almost
precisely the same fashion as people do, we cannot always trace their
earliest origins. There are certain towns we come across in travel, of
which we know very well that we want to know more. Perugia is one of
these. It at once catches hold of one's imagination. No one can see it
and forget it. A breath of the past is in it--of a past which we dimly
feel to be prehistoric. Boldly we set to work to learn its history, and
at first this seems an easy matter: the later centuries are a full and
an enthralling study, for as long as men knew how to write they were
certain to write about themselves, and the writers of Perugia had a wide
dramatic field to work upon. But then come the records which are not
written--which, in fact, are merely hearsay; and further even than
hearsay is the period when we know that men existed, but which has no
history at all beyond a few stone arrow heads, and bits of jade and
flint. Yet, to be fair to a place of such extraordinary antiquity as
this early city of the Etruscan league, one is unwilling to leave a
single stone unturned, and in the following sketch we have gathered
together, as closely as we could, the earliest facts about a city which
attracts us, as those unknown people attract us whom we meet, admire,
and lose again in the crowd.
"It seems," says Bonazzi, the most modern historian of Perugia, "that in
the earlier periods of the world all this land of ours (Umbria) was
covered by the sea, and that only the highest tops of the Apennines rose
here and there, as islands might, above the waves. Then other hills
arose, a new soil was disclosed, and great and horrid animals, whose
teeth were sometimes metres long, came forth and trod the terrible waste
places. In the silence of these squalid solitudes, no voice of man had
yet been heard, and the stars went on their way unnoticed, across the
firmament of heaven...."
But Bonazzi's science, though highly picturesque, was not entirely
correct, and the following account, written by an inhabitant of Perugia
who has studied the history of his town and neighbourhood with faithful
precision and from the darkest periods of their existence, may well be
inserted here.
"The city of Perugia," Prof. Bellucci writes, "is built upon a
piece of land which was formed by a large delta of the primeval
Tiber. In very early times (during the period known as pliocene)
the Tiber, before running into the sea, formed in the central basin
of Umbria an immense lake. The soil of which the actual plain of
Umbria is now composed, and the numerous low hills which surround
it, are made up either of river deposits such as sand and rubble
left behind by the rush of waters, or else by clay deposits which
slowly formed themselves in the quiet bosom of the lake. The date
of these deposits is shown by the fossil remains which are found in
them: elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, stags, antelopes,
hyenas, wild dogs, &c., all of which indicate a much warmer climate
than that of the present day. In the period following on this, the
great lake of Umbria began to empty itself; and as the soil washed
gradually away, the waters forced a passage through the mountains
below Todi, and from that time onward the Tiber gradually assumed
its present course. The characteristic fauna of this second period
distinguishes it from the first. Numerous remains found in the
primitive gravel deposits of the Tiber prove the existence of man
in our neighbourhood during both these periods (namely the
paleolithic and neolithic). But the final drying up of the great
lake basin or valley of Umbria was a very slow process, and even in
Roman times the extent of these stagnant waters was so wide that
the present town of Bastia on the road to Assisi was surrounded by
them on every side and went by the name of _Insula Romana_. The
final drainage of the lake was not completed till some time in
1400, when the river Chiagio burst through the rocky dykes under
Torgiano and lowered the level of the water by four metres. Thus
central Umbria at last assumed its present aspect. We stand upon
the hill-top at Perugia where once thousands of years ago the
turbid waters of the Tiber rushed along, and at our feet stretch
the green and fertile fields of Umbria, all the fairer for the
fertilising waters of that mighty lake which, in the dim and
distant past, had covered them completely."
We have no definite date or name for those first men who came to live
in this strange marshy wilderness. We have only the relics of their
patient industry. An inexhaustible store of arrow-heads and other
barbarous stone implements is found in all the hills around Perugia, and
splendid hatchet heads of jade upon the shores of Trasimene. No doubt
these men lived in holes and caves, perhaps at the foot of this hill
where the present city of Perugia stands, or a little to the west of it,
but their history is dark and very far away. Dark too and far away, as
far as written facts remain, is the history of that almost more
mysterious race of men which followed on the prehistoric one, namely,
the Etruscans.
This is no place in which to discuss the origin of that extraordinary
people whose language and parentage, though they lived and laboured side
by side with the most cultivated and inquisitive of European nations, is
practically dead to us. It is enough at this point of our history to
note that the Etruscans were the first to seal their personality, with
the seal of a visible and tangible intelligence, upon this corner of the
world, and it is quite probable that they made one of their earliest
colonies upon the jutting spur of a line of hills which would have
attracted them upon arrival. It is certain that in course of time
Perugia became one of the most powerful cities of the Etruscan league.
Her museums are full of the pottery, tombs, inscriptions, toys, and
coins of the mysterious nation (see Museum, chapter XI.).
Innumerable myths grew up around the foreign people, and individual
historians described their advent in individual places and pretty much
at random. The earliest chroniclers of Perugia, ignoring the men who had
perhaps existed for centuries before this unknown nation
landed,--ignoring too, the other settlers,--pounced upon a plum so
precious and romantic to stick into the pie of legends that they were
concocting; they
[Illustration: VIA DEL AQUEDOTTO, SHOWING TOWER OF THE CATHEDRAL]
peeled and stoned the plum to suit their fancy, and having done so,
stuck it in with many others to swell the list of dubious tales in their
long-winded manuscripts. As these chroniclers were nearly always monks,
it was natural enough that they should form their shambling history on
the one great history that they possessed, _i.e._, the Bible. To them
the Etruscans were easily and most satisfactorily explained: they
descended from the first man, Adam, and they were the sons of Noah. Nay,
the monks made an even happier hit, for they declared that Noah in
person climbed the Apennines and pitched his tent upon the spur of hill
where the present city stands! We can well imagine the old monk Ciatti,
one of the earliest historians of Perugia, sitting before his wooden
desk upon some dreamy night in May, his Bible propped before him, all
Umbria asleep beneath the stars outside his window, and compiling the
following entrancing legends concerning the Etruscans and their leader:
"Serious writers hold _Janus_ to be the same as _Noah_, who alone among
men saw and knew all things during the space of six hundred years before
the Deluge and three hundred years after the Deluge. The ancient medals
which show the two faces of Janus are engraved with a ship, to denote
that he was Noah, who, entering an ark in the form of a ship, was saved
by divine decree from the universal Deluge."[1] Ciatti next goes on to
give a delightful description of the arrival of Noah and his sons; "they
penetrated," he says, "into Tuscany,[2] where, fascinated by the
loveliness of the country, the agreeable qualities of the soil, the
gentle air and the abundance of the earth, they determined to remain;
but feeling uncertain where they should fix their dwelling, they were
advised by certain augurs to build Perugia on the spot where it now
stands." Some say that the name Perugia comes from the Greek word for
"abundance." Certainly Ciatti was able to weave this fact into his
legendary web: "Whilst, waiting for the Augurs," he writes, "two doves
passed by them, flying to their nest, one carrying a branch loaded with
olives and the other an ear of corn. Soon after there came a big wild
boar carrying on his tusks a bunch of grapes. They took these signs to
mean good omens, and they decided to build Perugia on the spot."
Ciatti must have been an honest chronicler. Had we been given his early
possibilities of making history in our own fashion, we must inevitably
have told a credulous public that the ark itself rested upon the spurs
of the Apennines and disgorged its contents on the hill where stands the
present city of Perugia. But Ciatti withheld his hand from this, and we
too must bare our heads before the fact of Ararat, and only hold to that
of Noah, in his five-hundredth year or so, wandering unwearied forth to
form a mighty nation on the coasts of Italy!
But before leaving Ciatti and his early myths, we must do him the
justice to say that he was not utterly ignorant of a dim nation and of
dimmer monsters living perhaps before the days of the Deluge. The old
monk, like other wise historians, sets to work to hunt up the heraldry
of his native city, and thus he explains the origin of the griffin on
the city arms. The enthralling hunt described savours surely of
something in an even earlier age?
"Now it so happened that, when the people of Perugia and of Narni
were at the height of their prosperity, they became consumed by a
very warlike spirit, and cultivated freely all military exercises,
and on one occasion they challenged each other to a trial of
prowess in a celebrated hunt. They agreed to meet in the mountains
round about Perugia, which were then the haunt of fierce and
terrifying wild beasts, and having come to that mountain which now
takes its name from the event (Monte Griffone) they found there a
griffin, which the Perugians captured and killed. After some
dispute the monster was divided, the skin and claws being best
worthy of preservation were taken by the Perugians, whilst the
body fell to the people of Narni. In memory of this occurrence the
Perugians took for their arms a white griffin--white being the
natural colour of that animal--while the people of Narni took a red
griffin, corresponding to the part which had fallen to their share,
on a white field."[3]
But, to pass from the realms of myth to those of reality, it seems quite
certain that the Etruscans--or Rasenae as they are sometimes
called--spread themselves over a large part of Italy, building and
fortifying their cities, making roads and laws and temples, and casting
the light of an older art and civilisation upon the land to which they
came as colonists. One of the chief of their cities was Perugia.
Fragments of the old walls, built perhaps three thousand years ago,
still stand in places, clean-cut, erect, and menacing, around the
Umbrian city.
The lives of the Etruscans can only be studied through their art, and
Perugia holds an ample store of this in her museums. There, in those
rather dreary modern rooms, stone men and women smile upon their tombs,
and the sides of these tombs bristle with long inscriptions written in
an alphabet that we can partly read, but in a language that we cannot
understand. Mirrors, and beautifully painted pots, children's toys and
ladies' curling-tongs--the Etruscan dead have left no lack of records of
their ways of living. But, strong as was their personality, another and
a stronger force had struggled through the soil of Italy. Rome had
arisen to shine upon the growing world. It remained for Rome to leave
the stamp of veritable history upon the city of Perugia.
Throughout the early history of Rome, we catch dim rumours of an
occasional connection or warfare with this corner of Etruria. It is not
till 309 B.C. that we have any distinct mention of Perugia in connection
with Rome. In that year the Roman Consul, Fabius, fought a battle with
the Etruscans under the walls of the town. The Etruscans lost the day,
Perugia and other cities of the League sued for a truce with Rome which
was granted to them. Fabius entered Perugia "and this was the first
time," says Bartoli, "that the banner of foreigners had waved across our
city." Perugia bitterly resented the rule of the foreign power, and,
breaking her truce, she made several passionate efforts to regain her
freedom. But in vain. Her blood, perhaps, was old, and grown corrupt,
the blood of Rome was new and palpitating. She was again and again
overcome by Fabius. In 206 B.C. we find her, not exactly submitting to
Rome, but playing the part of a strong ally, and cutting down her woods
to help in the building of a fleet for Scipio. Her history continues
dark--overshadowed by that of Rome. We hear a faint rumble of the Roman
battles. We catch dull echoes of Hannibal and Trasimene, for Trasimene
is very near Perugia. Did some of her citizens creep down perhaps, and
get a vision of the fight? Did any of those much-bewigged Etruscan
ladies, who we know were very independent in their ways, tuck up their
skirts and follow through the woods to have a look at the elephants and
shudder at the swarthy African?
We cannot tell. The next clear point in her history is a terrible one
for Perugia. She fell, but she fell by a mighty hand, by that of the
emperor Augustus. In the year 40 B.C. the Roman Consul, Lucius
Antoninus, who, it may be said, was defending the liberty of Rome whilst
Mark Antony lay lost in a love-dream upon the banks of Nile, took
refuge within the walls of Perugia from the pursuit of Octavius
(Augustus) who then laid siege to the town. For seven months the brave
little city held out, but she was reduced to such a terrible distress of
famine that Lucius at last gave way, and opened her gates to the
conqueror. Octavius entered Perugia covered with laurels. The citizens
prayed for mercy. He spared most of the men and women, but he excepted
three hundred of the elders and saw them singly killed before his eyes.
When they prayed for grace he merely tossed his head back and repeated:
"They must die." This ordeal over, Octavius decided to postpone the sack
of the city until the following day. But one of its citizens, Caius
Cestius Macedonicus, hot with all the shame of the thing, got up at
night and made a funeral pyre of his house. He set fire to its walls,
and as it burned he stabbed himself and died there. The flames spread
through the city, and before the morning Perugia was burned to the
ground. Nothing remained of all its buildings except the temple of
Vulcan, and in memory of this fire the town was afterwards dedicated to
Vulcan instead of to Juno to whom it had formerly belonged. Octavius
returned to Rome bearing before him the image of Juno, which alone had
been saved from the flames. Some years later he agreed to rebuild the
city, and hence the letters _Augusta Perusia_ over her gates.
* * * * *
So laying aside for ever _Perusia Etrusca_, that city of strange beasts,
strange people, and strange myths, we face _Perusia Augusta_, or the
Perugia of Rome.
For some centuries, strange as it may appear, the powerful old Umbrian
hill-town seems to have fallen contentedly asleep under the rule of her
great protector. It was, as we know, the policy of Rome to adopt the
laws and customs of the people whom she conquered rather than to change
them, and indeed the alteration seldom went further than in name. The
Etruscan rulers therefore took the titles of Roman governors, they did
not really alter, and it is probable that the laws of the very earliest
settlement have never really become extinct. The _Lucumo_ of the
Etruscans was in all probability the descendant of the earliest
prehistoric village chief, who developed into the _Diumvir_ or
representative of the Roman Consul pretty much as the present _Sindaco_
succeeded to the position of the _Podestà_ of the middle ages.
Rome had always loved and studied the religions of the older people, and
Bonazzi infers that Rome "delighted in nursing on the breast of her
republic those great masters of Divinity who could be made such powerful
political instruments for her service." The Romans must have
intermarried freely with the Etruscans; the mixture of names and
lettering upon their tombs points to this fact. But the strong fresh
blood of the younger race seems to have overcome that of the more
corrupt one. Other tribes and other tongues pressed in upon the first
inhabitants and gradually the language, yes, and the memory of the
strange and fascinating people, died.
Of the Roman occupation little trace can be found in the architecture of
the city, beyond the walls and gates and the inscriptions over some of
these, together with a sorry fragment of a Roman bath. It must be
remembered that the entire city was burned to the ground after the
siege--burned with all her wealth of monuments and temples--and it does
not seem as though the Romans did much to beautify her with grand
buildings. Having no old buildings to use as raw material, they were
probably content at this period to build strong walls and houses
suitable for a fortified town, thus fostering the warlike character of
her inhabitants which was to prove so great a point in following
centuries.[4]
Roman rule was a very real piece of history, but it is not possible to
say that the period of myth and darkness had wholly passed away. We
possess a certain knowledge of the Roman government, but the shadow of
the Gothic and Barbarian night closes in upon it like a heavy pall; and
the next clear and startling point about Perugia is her recapture by
Belisarius followed by the siege of Totila (or Baduila).
During those terrible centuries when Italy was being ravaged by
perpetual invasions, her lands devastated by war and plagues and famine,
and her cities, as one historian says, "no longer cities, but rather the
corpses of cities," we find scant mention of actual harm done to
Perugia, for it was the north which suffered first. However, as the
Goths pressed southward upon Rome, as Rome herself wavered and sank
beneath the weight of the northern hordes, and of her own corruption, we
gather that the Umbrian cities too became a prey to the barbarians, and
that Perugia suffered the fate of all her neighbours. Her historians
seek in vain for stated records of this time where all is darkness, but
some dim facts shine out, among them the steady growth of Christianity
within the city.
The first important date we find follows nearly six hundred years after
her capture by Augustus. It was in 536 A.D., that Justinian, who had
conceived the mighty plan of recovering Africa from the Vandals and
Italy from the Goths, sent one of his best generals, Constantine (under
Belisarius), into Umbria to occupy the cities there. Constantine made
Perugia his headquarters and for a while his possession of the town
seems not to have been disputed by the Goths. Witigis left her on one
side as he passed with his armies down to Rome, and it remained for the
indomitable Totila to wrest her (in 545) from the power of the Byzantine
Empire. Totila is a most prominent figure in the history of the city,
and many are the myths which centre round him. He first attacked Assisi,
and having conquered her, he turned his greedy gaze upon the fair hill
city opposite and instantly desired to possess her also. But realising
the strength of her position, which was largely increased by the
occupation of a Byzantine general, he determined to get her by foul
means rather than fair, and so he bribed one of her citizens to murder
Cyprian, who was then the general in command. The citizens rose in eager
revolt against this treachery, and Totila soon found that he had
undertaken no light thing when he came to besiege the town. Indeed
tradition says that the said siege lasted seven years, and however much
this may have been exaggerated, it is certain that it was made a hard
one for the Goth. Perugia was taken by storm, but after fearful
fighting; she fell, but she was upheld to the last by a new power,
namely that of her faith. The story of S. Ercolano, the faithful Bishop
of the Perugians, is told in another place (see pp. 245-246). It has
been admirably illustrated by Bonfigli, it has been described and
hallowed in a hundred ways throughout the city's chronicles, and it is
vain for modern historians to tell us, as they are inclined to do, that
Totila never set foot in Perugia. Bonfigli's fresco is terribly
convincing in itself, as are also the naïve and delightful records of
Ciatti and Pellini. Among the people of the town Totila has become one
of its most important facts, and they declare that his wife lies buried
close to the Ponte Felcino together with her husband's hidden treasure.
[Illustration: LOMBARD ARCH ON THE CHURCH OF S. AGATA]
Gothic rule was short. Infinite and hurried changes follow on this
period. We next hear of the city in the hands of the Lombards. The
Lombard occupation is almost as dark as the Gothic.[5] In 592, Perugia
became a Lombard Duchy ruled by the Duke Mauritius, who turned traitor
to his trust and delivered the city to the Exarch of Ravenna. The news
of the Duke's treachery spread northward. Agilulf, King of the Lombards,
came hastening down to recapture the city with a mighty army, and he
made Mauritius pay for his treachery with his head. This was in 593. A
few years later Perugia was restored to the Empire, but at the beginning
of 700, she, like many other cities of Italy, attempted to shake herself
free from Byzantine rule. It is probable that she did not really succeed
in doing so, but this point is at any rate a great crisis in her
history, for it is the first time that we find her at all tangibly
connected with the Head of the Christian world--with that power of the
Church which was to prove, throughout her future, alternately her
safeguard and her scourge.
It was about 727 that Leo the Isaurian, Emperor of the East, terrified
by certain evils in his kingdom which he took to be signs of Divine
anger, made his famous decree against the worship of images. This proved
of course a most unpopular edict in Italy, and the reigning Pope opposed
it by every means in his power. Many of the most powerful cities joined
him, amongst them Perugia, and Greek rule in Italy, already on the wane,
was greatly weakened, but we do not hear of any settled breach with the
Empire for many years to come. Perugia was, as we shall see, merely
advancing towards her own liberation, but the acquired protection of the
Popes proved useful to her in her next great crisis.
In 749 Ratchis, King of the Lombards, laid siege to the city, and her
fall seemed inevitable. Then, in the moment of her great need, with the
Lombard army beating in her very doors, the reigning Pope, S. Zacharias
the Greek, accompanied by all his clergy, and by many of the Roman
nobles, arrived at her gates, and in words of extraordinary sweetness
pleaded her cause with Ratchis. We do not hear what phrases the old man
may have used to check a man on the verge of a great victory. We only
hear that the Lombard king knelt down and kissed the feet of the Pope.
"Thou hast conquered me," he said, very simply, and then he withdrew
from the battle, and S. Zacharias passed into the city, and was received
with universal joy by her citizens. And not only did Ratchis abandon the
siege of a town which he so greatly coveted, but, his whole soul being
moved by this new power, he renounced his kingdom and his crown and
retired to the monastery Monte Cassino, where he became a monk, living
there until he died.
Thus closes another chapter of Perugian history. Within a space of three
hundred years, roughly speaking, she had changed the nationality of her
rulers four successive times, whilst she herself may be said never to
have changed. Her internal history, her internal government, had all
along continued pretty much on the first lines. Her entire future policy
proves this. In all the small wars which follow, and which lead to her
final supremacy over every other city in Umbria--cities which at the
outset had been as strong as herself, and even stronger, we trace this
masterful and incontestable personality--the personality of the griffin
which the old Etruscan settlers captured thousands of years before upon
the hill-tops and chose for their city arms.
* * * * *
In all the intense complication of the times which follow it is almost
impossible to unravel the exact position of individual towns. At one
moment we find Perugia belonging apparently to the Duchy of Spoleto, at
another joined to the Tuscan League, at another putting herself under
the protection of the Pope, whilst all the time nominally belonging to
the Empire. Bonazzi remarks that one result of the perpetual conflict
between Emperor and Pope was the liberty left to the citizens; in
another place he says that in the scant documents which contain her
early history, "Perugia is always mentioned alone, always managing her
own affairs." The said management dated back in all probability to that
of the very earliest settlement, which was mainly agricultural, and
managed by chiefs or a Village Council. As the town grew, so likewise
did the numbers of its rulers. In Perugia, as in other places, the
original Village Council, which was first held in the public square, was
abandoned as politics grew complicated. The Consuls, ten in number, two
to each Porta or gate, met in council on the steps of the first
Cathedral. The finest architectural building in Perugia is notably the
Palazzo Pubblico, but long before the construction of this palace there
was another building which served the same purpose close to the Duomo in
which the different protectors of the city met. We do not propose to
trace the form of government here. Suffice it to say that, in Perugia as
elsewhere, we find the usual titles of _Consuli_ and _Podestà_, then of
the Heads of City Guilds, the _Priori_ (a very strong power in Perugia),
_Capitano del Popolo_ and _Capitano della Parte Guelfa_; all of whom
recur again and again in her chronicles, playing important parts as
peace-makers or as arbitrators in her turmoils and dissensions.
The historians of Perugia, naturally enough perhaps, tend to speak of
her as of an independent Republic, but this she never was. She had her
own rulers, she grew powerful and individual, she finally became a great
capital, but she was never a free state like Florence or Rome. Something
in her extraordinary position, something in the character of her people,
warlike and tenacious from the first, proved her final force. Great
wandering hordes and armies thought twice before they attacked her
walls. Thus she enjoyed long periods of ease, and in her stormy breast
she nurtured the ferocious families which were to prove her strength,
but equally her bane in later years.
Being utterly cut off from mercantile expansion or commerce of an
ordinary sort, she used her concentrated force in subduing neighbouring
towns, and thus extending her dominion over Umbria. Her power soon
became recognised, and many little towns and hamlets sent envoys to
present acts of submission to the growing power. When these were given
freely she received them graciously, and when withheld she sometimes
showed a power of rapacity and cruelty which is well nigh inconceivable.
Her history is full of wars against Siena, Gubbio, Arezzo, Città di
Castello, Todi, Foligno, Spoleto and Assisi, all chronicled at great
length by her proud historians. We have collected a few scattered facts
relating to these, which cast some light upon the character of the
Perugians, who, as their power strengthened, began to show, not only a
tyrannous disposition, but an occasional spark of the grimmest humour.
Leaving aside other events, such as the encroaching power of the Pope,
we may now glance at some of these.
The first act of voluntary submission came from the island of Polvese in
1130, and was received with great solemnity in the Piazza di San Lorenzo
and in the presence of all the inhabitants of the city. A little later
more than nine hundred of the people of Castiglione del Lago came to
place their land on the shores of Trasimene under the protection of
Perugia. Città di Castello and Gubbio followed suit, and many of the
smaller towns and hamlets. But, if submission was sweet, blows, one
surmises, were well nigh sweeter to the fierce and savage owners of
Perugia, and horrid were the skirmishes--one can scarcely call them
battles--which ensued from time to time when towns resisted or rebelled
against them.
Assisi and Perugia were ever an eyesore to one another, and their
inhabitants scoured the plain between them like packs of wolves. In one
of these savage little contests tradition tells us that a certain
Giovanni di Bernadone, a youth of only twenty summers, was taken
prisoner by the Perugians and kept a year in the Campo di Battaglia. The
Palace of the Capitano del Popolo in the Piazza Sopramuro now covers the
place where the youth was chained, and we may look on it with
veneration, for he was no other than that sweetest soul of mediæval
history, St Francis of Assisi.
When Città della Pieve dared to rebel, the action of Perugia was prompt
and effective. "Most gladly did the youth of Perugia--hot with the
dignity of their city, and by no means disposed to forgive those who
despised or disobeyed her--assemble in arms," says Bartoli. The army
thus assembled was instantly sent to the recalcitrant city, but the
Pievese had scarcely caught sight of it hurrying towards their gates,
than they sent their _Procuratore_, Peppone d'Alvato, to sue for peace
and beg forgiveness for their misdeeds. This was kindly granted, but
Peppone, accompanied by some hundred and thirty Pievese, was forced to
come to Ripa di Grotto and there listen to the reproaches of the
_Podestà_ of Perugia, whilst the Bishops of Perugia and of Chiusi, the
Provost of S. Mustiola, and the _Arciprete_ of Perugia, sitting on high
chairs, surrounded by various grandees, were in readiness to enjoy the
spectacle. All were dressed in their finest, but we are told that the
_Arciprete_ of Corciano threw all his neighbours entirely into the shade
by the splendour and the brilliancy of his many-coloured garments.[6]
Peppone kneeling at the Bishop's feet with his hand on the gospels,
swore faith and loyalty to the Perugians, and we hear that the Pievese
returned home "rejoicing" at the pardon obtained in this most
humiliating fashion. This last fact we may take the liberty to doubt,
but it is certain that the Perugians enjoyed the whole episode
immensely, neither did they consider the humiliation of their enemies
complete. A further punishment had yet to be thought of, and at last a
brilliant plan was resolved on. The Piazza of San Lorenzo needed paving,
and the Pievese were told that they must provide all the necessary
bricks for this purpose, and this "puerile waspishness," as Bonazzi
describes it, so delighted the hearts of the Perugians that, as we
learn, not even the death of the great foe of the Guelph cause,
Frederick II., "was able to give them a keener sense of joy."
Perugia and Foligno had always regarded each other with undisguised
dislike, skirmishing about and exchanging insults wherever they happened
to meet. Once the people of Foligno had come bare-footed, and with a
sword and knife hung round their necks, to implore pardon of Perugia,
but they revolted again, and the Perugians continued to attack and to
molest them. Three times in a single year (1282) their lands were
devastated, and finally the town was taken, and the walls demolished,
and imperative orders were issued absolutely forbidding these to be
rebuilt on the western side. At last Pope Martin IV., amazed and
disgusted by the behaviour of a people to whom he was honestly attached,
interfered, but Perugia continued to molest her unhappy neighbour with a
quite peculiar animosity, whereupon the Pope, angered beyond measure by
their disobedience, excommunicated them. "Into such a passion did the
Pope fall with the people of Perugia," says Mariotti, "that he issued a
most severe excommunication against them." It was just at the time of
the Sicilian Vespers. The Perugians, irritated by their sentence of
excommunication, determined to celebrate a kind of mock vespers on their
own account. Gregorovius says that this is the first instance recorded
in history of this strange form of popular demonstration. "They made a
Pope and Cardinals of straw, and dragged them ignominiously through the
city and up to a hill, where they burned the effigies in crimson robes,
saying, as the flames leapt up, "That is such-and-such, a Cardinal; and
this is such-and-such, another."
A strange scene, truly, in a half-civilised city! But political and
religious causes came between and put an end to these half childish
squabbles. A little later the Pope forgave the Perugians, and they
continued their evil ways, and persisted in destroying the peace of the
Umbrian towns.
Arezzo had the satisfaction of a victory over Perugia in 1335, and in
defiance and derision she hanged her Perugian prisoners with a tabby cat
hung beside them, and a string of _lasche_ dangling from their
braces.[7] But pranks like these were not allowed to pass unnoticed, and
Perugia did not fail to grasp her finest banner with the lion of the
Guelph all rampant on a field of gules, and hurry out to subdue her
insolent neighbours. The people of Arezzo were humbled to the dust, but
by means too barbaric to be here described.
* * * * *
Thus one by one the cities of Umbria became sufficiently impressed by
this forcible fashion of dealing with insurrection, and they recognised
that it would be wise, though it might not be pleasant, to swear
allegiance to the imperious city. Gualdo next gave up her keys, together
with Nocera, but the latter found it impossible to suppress a few oaths
whilst signing the documents, and there was a loud wail over the laws
imposed upon them.
" ... e diretro le piange
Per grave giogo Nocera con Gualdo,"
says Dante, referring to the subject in the "Paradiso."
* * * * *
Perugia's culminating success seems to have been at Torrita in 1358,
when the Sienese were defeated, and forty-nine banners brought back tied
to the horses' tails, and the chains of the Palace of Justice torn away
and hung in triumph at the feet of the Perugian griffin. Even the
powerful Florence accepted Perugia's help in the Guelph cause, and so
early as 1230 arbitrations had been exchanged for the purpose of
settling all questions of commerce between the two cities.[8]
All these victories, these repeated successes, tended
[Illustration: PALAZZO BALDESCHI]
to increase Perugia's independence of spirit, and she was very careful
that no one, not even the Pope, should infringe on her rights, or
dispute her authority. Her attitude towards the Church is somewhat
difficult to understand. It seems to have mystified Clement IV., for he
expresses his "dolorous wonder" that the Perugians, who were such
devoted allies of the Holy See, could sometimes behave so wickedly
towards the clergy. And, curiously enough, the Perugians, lovers of
processions, of patron-saints, miracles, and all the rest, could, and
did, make laws to exclude all ecclesiastics from having anything to do
with their charitable institutions or donations to Churches.[9]
We find them protesting both with menaces and oaths against any
usurpation of the clergy, "In the names of Christ, the Virgin, S.
Ercolano, and S. Costanzo." Even the Pope was taught a lesson, for when
John XXI. in 1277 asked for some _lasche_ from the Lake of Trasimene,
the Perugians called a general council in which it was resolved that the
said _lasche_ should be sent to His Holiness, but accompanied by the
syndicate in order to show the Pope that the fish was the property of
the city, and a gift from its citizens merely _given_ to him for his
Good Friday dinner!
These somewhat petty hostilities did not, however, materially affect the
relations between the Papacy and the citizens of Perugia, and all
through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they remained on very
friendly terms with one another.
* * * * *
We have thought it best to give a general sketch of the growth of the
city, its customs and its wars, before touching on one of the chief
characteristics of its history, namely, its close connection with the
Papacy. It will, therefore, be necessary to glance back over some
centuries, in order to follow the steps by which the power of the Popes
arose in Perugia.
At first Papal authority was purely nominal. To the small towns of
Italy, living each their concentrated and oftentimes tempestuous lives
apart, the great Emperors who passed down to Rome in search of crowns
from the hands of Popes, must have appeared as ghosts, their documents
as unsubstantial as themselves. The fact that one of these, Pepin,
conceded large grants of land in Umbria, including Perugia, to a Pope
who never came to look at them, must have seemed to the Perugians as
little beyond a phantom transaction after all. We next hear of
Charlemagne in 800 confirming an act by which Perugia, together with a
number of other towns and territories, was placed under the _alto
dominio_ of the Holy See. In 962, Otto I. again confirmed the donation,
but the iron hand of Papal power was not felt for many centuries in the
rising town; and indeed, however deep the designs of the Church may have
been from the very beginning, they were well concealed, and the first
Popes who visited Perugia did so in the fashion of people starting on a
summer excursion, and not at all in the character of conquerors. They
would come to the city with all their suite of Cardinals and favourites,
and take up their abode in the cool and spacious rooms of the Canonica,
which, as Bonazzi with imperial pride declares, "became the Vatican of
Perugia."
Yet it is certain that the policy of the Holy See was deep, and that the
growing capital of Umbria appeared no plaything in its eyes. The
geographical position of the city--perched as it is on a hill which
commands the Tiber and overlooks the two great highways from the Eternal
City to the North and to the Eastern Sea--made it a most desirable
possession for the Popes, and it was inevitable that Perugia should,
sooner or later, submit to, or come into direct conflict with, the power
of Papal rule. The open acknowledgment of such a situation was merely a
question of time.
Innocent III., who has been called the founder of the States of the
Church, was the first Pope who came into direct personal contact with
the Perugians. He accepted from them an offer to be their _Padrone_, and
to exercise temporal power among them. Half playfully, though with what
deep and powerful designs we may divine, he called the citizens his
"vassals," and to a certain extent they were willing to submit to his
authority; but in so doing they were careful to wring from their
"_Padrone_" a promise that their rights and privileges should be
respected. Thus for the time they steered clear of the danger of
subjection, continued to govern themselves, and preserved that free and
independent spirit which hitherto, and in spite of every obstacle, had
marked them as a race. Innocent was beloved by the citizens. He came
amongst them at a time of much civil discord, when the nobles and the
people were preparing for open strife. "He was a peace-maker," says
Bartoli, "and he kept his eye on all things; and on this city he looked
with a peculiar partiality." The Pope was anxious to promote the
Crusades, and was on his way to Pisa to try to make a peace between the
Genoese and the Venetians, whose quarrels interfered with his schemes,
when he fell ill at Perugia, and died there in 1216.[10]
No sooner had he breathed his last than all his Cardinals hurried into
the Canonica to elect his successor, and such was the impatience of the
citizens that they even set a guard over these princes of the Church,
and kept them short of food in order to hurry their decision. We are not
therefore surprised to read that the Papal Throne remained vacant for
the space of one day only, and that in consequence of this event the
Perugians claim the privilege of having invented the Conclave.
Honorius III. succeeded Innocent, and he attempted, but without success,
to heal the ever-widening breach between the nobles and the people. We
have described something of the wars outside, but Perugia herself
within her walls was a veritable wasp's nest during this period of her
steady rise. Her inhabitants became more restless and unmanageable every
year. In their perpetual broils the nobles fought beneath their emblem
of the Falcon, and the _popolo minuto_ (common folk), who sided with
them, received the unamiable title of _Beccherini_.[11] The two extremes
in the social scale joined hands in a perpetual opposition to the
_popolo grasso_ (well-to-do burghers), who were called _Raspanti_
(_raspare_, to claw), a name probably suggested by their emblem of the
Cat.
Honorius in his plan of dealing with the complicated situation can
scarcely be described as disinterested; whilst apparently patching up
peace, he really attempted to force an acknowledgment of papal power.
His policy however, was fruitless, and the nobles resorted to the usual
expedient of retiring to their country castles, for, as Bonazzi says,
they "preferred to tyrannise alone in the silence of their isolated
strongholds rather than to divide their forces in the capital of a
powerful federation." But the situation threatened to become
intolerable, and we read that through the years from 1223 to 1228 a
"perfect pandemonium reigned in and about the city." Cardinal Colonna
was sent to try and restore the balance between the rival factions, but,
finally, Gregory IX. was forced to come in person, and through his
influence the banished nobles were recalled from exile, and a certain
degree of peace restored.
Gregory paid many visits to Perugia, much to the annoyance of the
Romans, who expressed their wonder that the little hill-town with
nothing but its brown walls, towers, and landscape to recommend it,
should be preferred by him to the plains and palaces of the Eternal
City. This fact is recorded about the year 1228, when Gregory IX. was
making an unusually long stay in his excellent and quiet quarters in the
Canonica (at S. Lorenzo). The Romans were well aware, Bartoli says, that
it was because of their ill-behaviour that he had retired into private
life far away in the Umbrian city, and they even accepted as a judgment
on their evil ways a certain most horrible inundation of the Tiber which
befell them at that period. Deputies hurried across the land from Rome
with supplications to the Pope to return to his people, and Gregory
went, but he quickly returned to Perugia. The fame of S. Francis of
Assisi was then at its height. Gregory felt inquisitive, but not
altogether certain of the truth of the tales which were spread abroad
concerning this wonderful man. He made numerous enquiries and sent his
Cardinals to Assisi to gather all the information they were able to
collect about the Saint. But the final manner of the doubting Pope's
conversion is described with such marvellous and touching piety in the
"Fioretti" that we have inserted it at length in our description of the
place where it occurred.[12] In the same year and place Gregory
canonized S. Francis, "to the splendour of religion," says one
historian. He also canonized S. Dominic and Queen Elizabeth of Hungary,
he sent missions into the land of the unfaithful, and gave indulgences
of a year and forty days to all who would give money to the building of
S. Domenico. So we may fairly say that he did not waste his time, but
that he managed to get through a large amount of business during the
time that he spent in Perugia.
* * * * *
It is difficult to define the exact mutual relations of Pope and city
in any corner of Italy, but it is certain that Perugia found Papal power
useful to her in many ways, and that on whatever side she happened to
have a quarrel on hand, she always turned to the Papal See for help and
arbitration. In spirit she was always Guelph, fighting under the emblem
of the Guelph lion, and full of Guelph interests. Yet, although openly
exercising self-government, almost in the manner of a free republic,
under the protection and nominal rule of the popes, she was at the same
time patronised by the emperors. In 1355 we read that her ancient
privileges were confirmed and new ones granted by the Emperor Charles
IV., who seems to have considered it worth his while to gain the
friendship of her citizens.
Up to this period we have only had to deal with pleasant passing visits
of the popes who sojourned in the city for a while. The time came,
however, when the noose which Innocent had so lightly cast about their
necks began to pull and tighten. The Perugians revolted hotly against
the Popes of Avignon, who, incensed at their rebellion, attempted to
check it by every means in their power. To understand the painful
struggles which follow, it is necessary to remember that the end of the
fourteenth and the whole of the fifteenth centuries were the most
prosperous period in Perugia's history. She had grown steadily and
uninterruptedly both in power and riches, and in spite of terrible
obstacles, ever since the day when the Romans rebuilt her walls more
than fifteen hundred years before. In these two centuries she erected
her public buildings, extended and settled her government, coined money,
started her university, settled with her habitual promptitude all
suspicion of rebellion, became one of the _Tre Communi_ of Florence,
Siena and Perugia, and whilst achieving all these things she continued
to foster the passionate feuds and hopeless enmities between the
different factions which we have described above. Having grown strong
and prosperous it was natural that she should resent any open attempt of
a foreign power to subject her, and such an attempt came in the middle
of the fourteenth century from the Papal See.
In 1367 the Spanish Cardinal Albornoz was busily employed in recovering
the States of the Church. Perugia was at that time faithful to the Pope,
and she received the Cardinal with due honours and gave him valuable
help, especially in an expedition against Galeotto Malatesta of Rimini.
Her goodwill however was of short duration, for the citizens saw
themselves despoiled of Città di Castello and of Assisi during the
Cardinal's campaigns, and this they would not brook. They therefore sent
a strong army at once towards Viterbo, but it was beaten back with heavy
loss, and Urban V.'s authority was again firmly rooted at Perugia. He
sent his brother, Cardinal Angelico, Bishop of Albano, as Vicar General
to represent him in the city. Thus the authority of the popes crept in
upon the town, and authority of some kind became every year more
necessary as the voice of the people grew and strengthened and as the
exiled nobles quarrelled outside the walls. Papal authority was finally
represented in 1375 by an imperious French abbot, known in Perugian
annals as Mommaggiore, whose doings and buildings have been described in
another place. (See pp. 184-186.) The yoke that Mommaggiore--"that
French Vandal, that most iniquitous Nero," as the chroniclers call
him,--put upon the neck of Perugia, proved unbearable to every party,
and all the different factions for once joined together to break it.
Florence and other cities, castles, and fortresses which had "unfurled
the banner of liberty," joined in the revolt, and in 1375 the abbot was
driven in a very undignified fashion from the city. A republic was then
declared and the whole town rejoiced at having broken away from the
thraldom of the Popes of Avignon. In vain did Gregory XI. call the
people of Perugia "sons of iniquity"; in vain did he hurl the most
terrible excommunications against them;[13] the feud between the city
and the Pope was only laid to rest when the latter died. It had lasted
long, and had produced something worse even than the struggle of two
strong powers, for it had served to increase the terrible civil discord
within the town. With the accession of Urban VI. a treaty was concluded,
and Perugia acknowledged his right of dominion. In 1387 Urban arrived in
the city, and as he entered the gates a white dove rested on his hat and
refused to be removed by the servants who ran forward to deliver His
Holiness from the unexpected visitor. It answered the Pope's touch
however, and was handed to his chaplain, and everyone accepted the event
as an excellent omen. We will not linger to judge of its excellence, we
can only say that the bird heralded an entirely new chapter in the
history of the town, which hitherto had developed under general
influences and many different hands. Her coming history is that of
single influences, of personalities, or, in other words, of despots. The
time had come when Perugia was to show the fruit of her stern ambitious
character in the individual men whom she had reared. The names of
Michelotti, Braccio Fortebraccio, Piccinino and of the noble families of
Oddi and of Baglioni are familiar to all who have merely turned the
pages of her history. Perugia, like other towns of Italy, had at the end
of the fourteenth century reached a point of internal strife from which
strong personalities could easily rise up to dispute or to control the
existing government. Why it was exactly that the Popes did not from the
first forcibly interfere with the turbulent doings of these men, it is
difficult to tell. They were constantly coming to the city, constantly
appealed to by the citizens and nobles, for ever interfering both by
menaces and arms, but it was not till more than a century of blood and
tyranny had passed, not till the glory of the town was already on the
wane, that the power of the Church came down to crush Perugia like a
sledge-hammer.
Strangely enough it was a Pope who first gave the city away into the
hands of a private person or Protector.
[Illustration: ARMS OF PERUGIA]
CHAPTER II
_The Condottieri and the Rise of the Nobles_
"The confusion, exhaustion, and demoralisation engendered by these
conflicts determined the advent of Despots.... The Despot delivered
the industrial classes from the tyranny and anarchy of faction,
substituting a reign of personal terrorism that weighed more
heavily upon the nobles than upon the artizans and peasants.... He
accumulated in his despotic individuality the privileges previously
acquired by centuries of consuls, _podestàs_, and captains of the
people."--See "Age of the Despots," J. A. SYMONDS.
Deep gloom closed in upon Perugia towards the end of the fourteenth
century. The breach between the nobles and the people continued to
widen. Sometimes one party was driven out of the city, sometimes
another. Now and again both parties were recalled, and a compact of
peace arranged by an arbitrary person from outside. But this last
arrangement produced an even more terrible state of affairs, and crime
and bloodshed were the inevitable result. We read of deaths by hundreds
and not tens--cruel and indescribable deaths, which make one
shudder--and already in the thick of the strife the names of Oddi and of
Baglioni are stamped upon the records.
One of the strangest points in the history of the city at this time was
the fashion in which these feuds between the rival factions were met by
them. Whichever party was weakest retired for the time to the country,
leaving the city to their rival till time should favour their own
cause.[14]
Bonazzi gives an almost extravagant account of the boorish manner of the
exiled nobles' lives. Down in the open country they hunted the abundant
wild boar and devoured his flesh when they came home at night. They
slept in dark and cavernous halls, and were out at dawn across the
fields and forests, killing, hunting, fighting, according to the order
of the day. Yet, although they were banished from the walls of their
native town, they continued to molest and to disturb the citizens, and
whenever the opportunity occurred, in they came again, sometimes openly,
sometimes after the manner of thieves. We read of their entering the
city at night across the roofs, robbing the cellars and granaries, and
murdering such citizens as ventured to interfere.
Sometimes the order was reversed: the nobles got possession of the town,
and the people were forced into the country. The terrible unrest of such
a state of things may easily be imagined, and, added to these great
evils, or, probably, produced by them, came the devastating plagues
which ravaged the cities of Italy at the end of the fourteenth century,
and the almost equal scourge of mercenary soldiers and private bands of
foreign adventurers, who roamed through the rich, ill-governed towns and
villages fighting for one family or another, or else engaged in
pillaging upon their own account.[15]
In all these quarrels, in all this turmoil and confusion, whichever
party happened to be uppermost, the person to appeal to was the Pope,
and endless were the messages sent down from Rome. At last, in 1392,
both sides seemed to have wearied for the moment of the incessant strife
(the nobles at this time were masters of the city, the _Raspanti_ were
away in exile), and when the Pope, Boniface IX., appeared in person, he
was received with enthusiasm. We hear that the _Priori_ and the
treasurers of the city robed themselves in beautiful new scarlet
mantles, the "companies" of the different gates danced through the
streets with unmitigated joy, and the people went forth in crowds to
meet him. But the breach between the factions was too wide, the
situation too complicated for a Pope, who arrived merely in the
character of a peacemaker, to grapple with successfully. The presence of
Boniface brought no peace, and he retired into the monastery of S.
Pietro, which he hastily converted into a fortress, demolishing its
tower in his eagerness to secure his own personal safety; and there, as
he nervously wondered what next he had better do, he heard the cries of
"Down with the _Raspanti_!" answered by "Death to the nobles!" borne in
upon the breeze.
Finally, in a manner peculiar to the Perugians, they met together in
council to dictate the action of the person they had called in to act
for them, and it was settled that the Pope should have full power as
arbitrator of peace between themselves and the _Raspanti_. The Pope did
exactly as he was asked. He recalled the _Raspanti_, and they entered
the city on the 17th October 1393, not merely as a body, but headed by
a powerful personality--Biordo Michelotti, one of Perugia's greatest
citizens, and the first of the _condottieri_ who ever got rule in the
city.
Exiled in early youth from his native town, Biordo Michelotti had chosen
the career of a _condottiere_, and roamed through the length and breadth
of Italy, fighting the battles of different princes. Some say he had
fought for the French king against the English. He was essentially a
captain of adventure. His manner was kindly, he was brave, honest,
frank, and popular among the people wherever he happened to go. Beloved
all over Umbria, many of the towns which directly opposed Perugia's
tyrannical rule had submitted to that of Biordo. All these successes did
not, however, satisfy the man in him, for the ruling ambition of his
life was to get the dominion over his native city, and events were now
combining to procure for him his heart's desire. The _Raspanti_ rallied
round him in their exile, and he became their leader, and the champion
of their liberty. The nobles, seeing the power of his popularity,
offered him bribes to keep out of their way. But Biordo lay low in his
fortress at Deruta, and when the Pope's offers of peace arrived he
hailed them with delight. A month later he entered Perugia at the head
of about 2000 _Raspanti_, who had been exiled from their homes for
years. They at once visited the Pope in token of homage and gratitude,
and their new lease of power within the city was opened by the
re-election of the priors, who were chosen half from the burgher faction
and half from the nobility. By this means it was hoped that a lasting
reconciliation might be made and an evenly balanced government
established. Yet such seemed impossible. Peace endured for the space of
one short month, and at the very first opportunity--on the occasion of
Biordo's absence from the city--the smouldering fires of party feuds
burst out in flames as rampant as before. One of the _Raspanti_ was
murdered by the nobles, and, just as the _Podestà_ was preparing to pass
sentence on the assassin, Pandolfo dei Baglioni, "that Perugian Satan,"
as Bonazzi calls him, interfered on behalf of the criminal.[16]
Whereupon the _Raspanti_ vowed vengeance, assassinated Pandolfo and
Pellini Baglioni on their own threshold, and murdered sixty of their
clan. The Ranieri, another noble family, with their friends, took refuge
in the strong Ranieri tower, where they were forced to go without food
for three days. At last the people dragged them before the _Podestà_,
but as he refused to execute them, the unhappy noblemen were conveyed
back to their tower, where they were finally butchered, and their bodies
thrown out of the windows.
Horrified by these fresh atrocities, and again in search of peace, the
Pope loaded his mules and retired with his Cardinals to Assisi. The
tumults were just subsiding when Biordo Michelotti returned, and this
time he took absolute possession of the city. He met with no sort of
opposition. The ring-leader of the nobles, Pandolfo Baglioni, was dead,
and the Pope for the minute encouraged the attempt towards peace. Biordo
used his power well, and every year his fame and honours increased. To
the delight of the Perugians, he succeeded to the command of Sir John
Hawkwood over the Florentine forces, and everywhere he pushed the
interests of the town, wisely concluding a treaty with Gian Galeazzo
Visconti, the powerful lord of Milan (1395).
The Pope, in the meantime, began to regret the encouragement he had
given to this very popular hero. His jealousy was roused, and he hired
a _condottiere_ for a month, in order to fight the Perugians. The
hostilities, however, ended with the month, and nothing was accomplished
beyond a demonstration of the Pontiff's jealousy. But there was someone
else beside the Pope who witnessed the honours paid to Biordo with a
jealous hatred, and this was the Abbot of S. Pietro. "The wicked Abbot,"
as the people called him, belonged to the noble family of the
Guidalotti, and he probably felt that the power of his family was too
much overshadowed by Michelotti. He had fresh cause to murmur,
therefore, when Biordo married Bertolda Orsini of Rome, and the Lords of
Urbino, Camerino, San Severo, Gubbio, and other towns came up to offer
the happy pair rich presents, and to wish the bride-groom well. Biordo's
marriage was a splendid pageant. The city decked herself magnificently
to do him honour, and all the people of the country round sent offerings
of grain, and wine, and eggs, and cheese, everything which their small
farms produced, to show their leader how they loved him.
The Abbot sat at his window, and with no kindly eye he watched the entry
of the young bride, close by the monastery walls. Madonna Contessa
Orsini came in escorted by the Florentine and Venetian ambassadors. Her
dress was made of cloth of gold, she wore a garland of wild asparagus
around her head, and jewels sparkled in her hair. The Abbot noted all
these things, he saw the women of Perugia running out to meet her, he
saw them throw flowers in her path, and then he returned to his cell to
brood upon his horrid plans of vengeance. For he had determined to place
the town once more beneath the sway of the Church, and in this way to
gain for himself a Cardinal's hat, as it was probably the Pope himself
who urged him to the deed.
[Illustration: VIA DELLE STALLE]
On Sunday, in the month of March 1398, while the citizens were attending
a sermon at S. Lorenzo, the Abbot arrived on horseback at the Guidalotti
palace on Colle Landone, to collect his fellow-conspirators, and some
twenty of them proceeded to Biordo's house on Porta Sole. Word was sent
up to Michelotti that there was important news for him, and he,
suspecting nothing, hurried down to meet the Abbot with a courteous
greeting. The Abbot stepped forward, took his hand, and kissed Biordo,
at which sign the rest of the conspirators fell upon their victim and
stabbed him with their poisoned daggers, hitting him such grievous blows
that soon he lay weltering in a pool of blood. The conspirators had
first intended openly to announce the deed in the piazza, but their
courage failed them and the Abbot merely muttered the news to the
passers-by as he slunk away to S. Pietro with a few companions. Two of
the braver of the assassins, however, stayed behind and, coming into the
piazza, cried: "We have slain the tyrant." The citizens, who were at
mass, rose with one accord from their devotions, to avenge the death of
their beloved leader, and leaving the preacher to continue his sermon to
an empty church, they hurried to arms. The Abbot meanwhile hastened from
his monastery at S. Pietro to a still safer refuge at Casalina. As he
fled he looked back upon the city whose hero he had murdered, and he saw
the flames and smoke break out from the palace of those same Guidalotti
he had hoped to benefit, whilst the news of the death of his old father
and many of his family in the carnage of that day was brought to him as
a sorry consolation for his crime.
Biordo's blood was gathered together by the citizens and put into a
little silver basin, and above it they placed the banner of Perugia with
the white griffin upon a crimson field; and as one chronicler informs
us, a heart of stone must have melted at the sight of it.
Thus perished the first of that extraordinary series of men who took
upon themselves the terrible task of governing single-handed the city of
Perugia. Nearly all died by violence, but the violence done to Biordo
was a cruel wrong. A short interval follows, and then the greatest name,
perhaps, of all the city's chronicles comes up upon the scene, namely,
that of Braccio Fortebraccio di Montone.
* * * * *
The Perugians suspected the ungracious part that the Pope had played in
the murder of their leader, and the suspicion made them restless and
dissatisfied. It was probably owing to this that they fell a prey to the
cunning wiles of the Duke of Milan.
Gian Galeazzo had ingratiated himself with the citizens some time
previously by giving them grain during a time of famine, and he now came
forward to reap the benefit of his charity by getting himself accepted
as Lord of Perugia, which would facilitate his designs on Tuscany.
Perugia's connection with Milan, however, only lasted four years. On
Gian Galeazzo's death, in 1402, the Duchess of Milan made peace with
Boniface IX., and restored Bologna, Perugia, and Assisi to the Church.
The Perugians submitted to the Pope (they seem not to have been
consulted in the matter of the donation), but with the strict
understanding that the exiled nobles should keep at least twenty miles
distant from the city. Boniface agreed to this arrangement. Other popes
before him had tried to patch up peace between the parties, but he had
not the courage to attempt such difficult experiments. It remained for
Braccio Fortebraccio to tear through the tangled network of Perugian
politics, to unite within himself the powers of both parties, and as the
city's despot to raise it to "unprecedented glory."
Braccio Fortebraccio was born at Montone in 1368. He was the son of Oddo
Fortebraccio, Lord of Montone, and of Jacoma Montemelini, his wife, of a
noble Perugian family. During his youth the _Raspanti_ were dominant in
the city, and the boy grew up as an exile. He had only his sword and an
immense ambition with which to force his way to future power. It was at
that time the fashion for young noblemen to win fame for themselves by
the life or trade of the _condottieri_. Braccio therefore joined the
famous Italian company of S. George, led by Alberigo di Barbiano, whose
advent crushed the foreign captains of adventure whose lawless
mercenaries had sent terror throughout the rich plains and villages of
Italy during the fourteenth century.
In the tents of Alberigo, Braccio di Montone and Sforza Attendolo[17]
learned together the science of warfare. Thence they two went forth to
fight the battles of princes, kings, and popes; to create two separate
methods of combat, and to fill all Italy with tales of their great
valour and their rivalry. Braccio's ambition grew with his success, and
he soon aspired to acquiring the whole of Italy. His first step towards
this very large design was the capture of his native city of Perugia.
But as he represented the party of the nobles, the _Raspanti_ manfully
resisted any efforts he made to approach them. "It is better even to
submit to foreign rule than to make peace with the nobles," they said;
and thus it came about that they gave themselves over to Ladislaus, King
of Naples, and remained for some six years in connection with the
kingdom of Naples. When Ladislaus died in 1414, the Perugians were
seized with terror, but the nobles saw their opportunity, and all things
seemed to favour the scheme of Fortebraccio.
Braccio had joined the service of Pope John XXIII., and by him had been
made governor of Bologna; but when the Pope was deposed by the Council
of Constance, Braccio's allegiance ended, and he at once sold the
Bolognese their liberty, and with the 82,000 florins which he gained by
this transaction he collected a strong army, the exiled nobles flocked
to his standard, and they marched at once upon Perugia.
At the news of Braccio's approach terror and consternation spread
through the city. The gateways were built up, and the magistrates
forbade anyone to leave the town. But the Perugians, "being the most
warlike of the people of Italy," as Sismondi says, could not resist so
grand a chance of fighting, and seeing Braccio's men clustering around
the city's walls, they jumped down from the ramparts into their midst,
and took the soldiers unawares by the suddenness of their attack. This
was no real battle, but tumults of the sort were the order of the day.
In the dead of night men would rush in panic into the piazza, not
knowing what had brought them there, and only conscious of one fact:
their desire to make a fierce stand for their liberty. Braccio made a
fruitless effort to penetrate into the heart of the city, and was driven
back ignominiously. The women threw down stones and boiling water on the
assailants, whilst they goaded their own men to fight, crying aloud,
"Now is your time to wound the enemy,--at him with your swords your
teeth and nails!"
At last the Perugians called in the help of Carlo Malatesta, Lord of
Rimini, and on the 15th of July 1416, the two armies met between the
Tiber and Sant' Egideo on the road to Assisi. The greatest generals of
Italy and her best soldiers, says Sismondi, took part in the fierce
fighting of that day. The parties closed in deadly conflict; for seven
hours they fought beneath the burning sun, and the heat was increased by
the dense dust that filled the air. "Most dolorous were the sighs which
were heard to issue from the helmets," says Fabretti. Braccio was a wise
general. He had carefully prepared beforehand countless jars of water
for the refreshment of his men and horses after each skirmish, and this
in the end was the cause of his victory. The Tiber was flowing five
hundred paces from Malatesta's soldiers, and they finally could bear the
terrible thirst no longer but hurried down to drink. Braccio seized upon
this moment in which to swoop upon the enemy with all his force. The day
was won. Carlo Malatesta and his young nephew Galeazzo Malatesta, were
taken prisoners, and it "was strange to note that the humblest of
Braccio's soldiers were driving prisoners before them like a herd of
cattle."[18]
* * * * *
When the Perugians heard of the defeat they immediately sent ambassadors
to offer the government of their city to Braccio. They seem after all
their previous fighting, to have at once submitted to their fate, which
as it turned out, was an excellent piece of good fortune for them. They
made preparations to welcome their new despot in a manner worthy of the
man. Fine carpets, brocades, and long gold chains, were hung from the
palace windows, flowers lay thick upon the pavement from S. Pietro to S.
Lorenzo, whilst elegant gold and silver vases were placed in the windows
of the Palazzo Pubblico. "Evviva Braccio, Signore di Perugia," they
shouted as he entered, and thus the die was cast.
Anxious to conciliate both parties in the city, Braccio assumed the
attitude of Father of his Country and succeeded in inspiring the people
with an unusual sense of admiration. Master of all Umbria and Prince of
Capua, many towns acknowledged his dominion, and even Rome was forced to
accept him at one period as her lord. It is, therefore, scarcely to be
wondered at that Perugians have never ceased to lament that Braccio died
before accomplishing his vast designs for conquering all Italy, for they
feel that they only just missed the chance of rivalling the glory of
imperial Rome.
There are infinite records concerning the personality of this
extraordinary man.
"He was of medium stature," says Campano, "with a long face and
highly coloured, which imparted great majesty to his appearance.
His eyes were not black, but very brilliant; they sparkled with
fun, yet with a certain gravity. His figure was partly deformed and
scarred by wounds. Whether grave or gay he was always high bred, so
that his very enemies confessed that among any number of persons he
would always be recognised as leader and chief."
In the following lines Campano sums up his character:--
"Braccio was grave and kindly of speech, without artifice or
trickery, a gift of nature rather than acquired, though improved by
some study. None could soothe an angry person with more grace than
Braccio, none could exhort and inflame his followers with more
vehemence and ardour to the combat. He was beloved by his soldiers,
being neither haughty nor rough spoken, and he united military
severity with a certain civil modesty and a courtier-like manner."
One of the most delightful traits of Braccio's character was an intense
hatred of idleness, and city-loafers he nicknamed "_I consumatori della
piazza_" (wearers out of the pavement of the public square). He
encouraged the Perugians to play as well as fight, and it was he who
revived the ancient game of the "Battle of the Stones." His soldiers
would often join in the sport, and great was the joy of the citizens
when the latter were vanquished. Braccio himself was not allowed to
play; he would watch the game from an upper window, and much as he often
desired to join, his companions prevented him, for it seldom happened
that less than twelve men lay killed or wounded at the end of the day.
This extraordinary and barbarous game deserves an account in any history
of Perugia. It dates back to Roman times, and the credit of playing the
"fiercest game in Italy" belonged to Perugia alone, and was believed to
be the reason why her people were "of such commanding mould both in
spirit and in body." Even the children joined during the first two
hours, so as to make them strong and warlike from their infancy.
On the Sundays and feast-days of March, April, and May, and into the
middle of June, the citizens met in the Campo di Battaglia, on the road
to Monte Luce, and there formed themselves into two parties, one
remaining on the level of the square, the other just below. Till
nightfall each party fought to drive the other off the ground, and
whichever side managed to gain the middle of the square, carried off the
palm of victory. This wonderful "game" must have looked like a miniature
battle of a somewhat prehistoric kind; for the combatants were all
swathed about the neck, their legs encased in thick leather stockings,
stuffed with deer's hair and protected by greaves; thickly padded round
the body under their cuirasses, their feet in shoes of linen cloth
wrapped three times round and stuffed again with the hair of deer. The
warlike youths and men wore on the top of everything else a helmet which
projected forward in the shape of a sparrow-hawk's head, and thus
protected, they were able to watch the stones flying about their heads
without being blinded. They were called the "_Armati_," and were led to
combat by "Hurlers" (_lanciatori_), who wore a lighter apparel, and
threw the stones with extraordinary ability, thereby exciting the
citizens to combat. Old men sat at their windows watching the fight with
breathless interest. If they saw that their side was losing, they would
sometimes tear off coat and mantle, hurry downstairs, and utterly
regardless of their age, fling themselves into the thick of the fight.
"It was a very beautiful spectacle," exclaims Campano, "to witness the
fall, first of this one, then of that, as they were wounded and tumbled
to the ground, whilst others, protected by a shield, hurled themselves
upon their adversaries with the weight of their entire bodies, diving
in and out among the crowd and dealing blows upon their eyes and faces
with shield and sword and buckler."
To us it seems strange that at a time when the feuds of centuries lay
smouldering and ready to burst out at the smallest provocation, no
rancour, no ill-will, seemed to be harboured by the relations of the men
who fell dead or wounded in one of these terrible "games."
Besides encouraging sports, fighting wars, and arranging civil matters,
Braccio had a passion for building. He rebuilt the city walls in many
places. He added the loggia to the front of the Cathedral, that the
citizens might have a pleasant shelter in the square in which to discuss
and settle their affairs, and it was he who conceived a rather novel and
practical piece of engineering by bolstering up the houses of the Piazza
Sopramuro with strong walls from beneath.[19] The vanity of the
Perugians was immensely flattered by all the great doings of their new
leader, and their pride knew no bounds when, on the Feast of S.
Ercolano, the neighbouring towns sent in their banners with
extraordinary pomp in token of their absolute subjection to the city's
rule. So delighted indeed were the people, that they at once sent a
message to the Pope to ask him to confirm Braccio's dominion in Perugia.
The request was met in stony silence. The Papal See was jealous of
Braccio Fortebraccio, yet it could not do without him, and so, for the
time, it smothered its wrath and mortification. Martin V. was in need of
Braccio's sword to help in regaining the lost possessions of the Church,
and he sent for him to Florence to sign the necessary agreements. The
visit was disastrous, for even the Florentine street boys exulted in
the popularity of the hero:
"Braccio valente
Vince ogni gente
Papa Martino
Non val un quattrino"
they sang in high, shrill voices below the windows of His Holiness. The
insult stung and rankled.
"Papa Martino non val un quattrino," muttered the Pope in a miserable
voice as he paced up and down, complaining to his secretary.
* * * * *
In 1423 Braccio had reached the height of his power, but his ambition
soared still higher, and at this turn in his life his character seems to
have undergone a change. His vast plans for conquering Italy had
unhinged him, and he became cruel where formerly he had been kind, and
deaf to the counsels of his friends. The simplest and the quietest of
his days had been spent at Perugia, where his memory still lingers like
the aureole around some conquering saint. But looking out across the
plains and mountains of Umbria and towards the Marches which were
already his, Braccio dreamed his mighty dream: that of becoming king of
a united Italy. Aquila alone resisted his power, and in the year 1423,
he set out for his last venture. It is said that before he started he
left to the care of his wife, Nicolina da Varano, a little casket, with
the injunction that she should not open it until after his death, or his
return home. When Braccio died Nicolina opened the casket and she found
inside a black veil and a sceptre. It was thus the dead man told his
wife that the battle of Aquila decided whether she should be a powerful
queen or an unhappy widow.
The siege of Aquila lasted for a whole year, and finally, in May 1424, a
decisive battle took place in the plain below the town, between Braccio
and Caldora, who came to fight him in the name of Martin V. It was a
great fight, and it ended in a tragic manner: Braccio, the beloved of
the Perugians, got his death-wound at the hands of a Perugian citizen, a
_Raspante_, who had never forgiven the return of the nobles to Perugia.
Caldora tended Braccio during his last hours with every possible care.
The doctors hoped to save him, they said that the wounds in his head and
throat were curable, but Braccio wished to die; he was determined not to
survive his defeat. He refused all nourishment and during the three days
that he lingered, he never spoke a single word. His dream had faded, and
his courage gone.[20]
In the papal circle there was great rejoicing at the news of Braccio's
death, for Martin V. knew well that Umbria was once again his own. The
Pope indeed was small-minded enough to harbour his enmity to the very
last. Instead of allowing the fallen captain to be quietly buried, he
had him placed in unconsecrated ground outside the walls of Rome. The
bones of the great Braccio had but a troubled career. They were brought
to Perugia by Niccolò Fortebraccio, and deposited for a while in the
Church of S. Costanzo, where they were met by the municipality and the
whole city and then carried in triumphal procession to the Church of S.
Francesco al Prato. All the shops were closed as the bones passed up the
streets, no bells were rung, horses and men were draped in black. In
this century, by a piece of rather questionable taste the bones of the
hero were once more taken from their Church, and may now be stared at,
like the bones of the Etruscan ladies, under a bit of glass in the
museum of the University. Under them are written in Latin the following
lines: "O you who pass by, stay and weep. I, born in Perugia, was
received in Montone as an exile. Mars subjected to me my native land of
Umbria, and Capua too. Rome obeyed me, the world was the spectator and
Italy the stage. But Aquila mocked my fall, wherefore my weeping country
locked me into this small urn. Ah! Mars raised me up, Mors brought me
low. Therefore pass on."
The news of Braccio's death caused the utmost consternation in Perugia.
If the great captain had saved the town at a critical point, he may also
be said to have created a situation which was perhaps a still more
critical one for her citizens. Braccio was a noble. With his advent in
Perugia the party of the nobles had returned. Terrible things were in
store for the city. For a little while, and partly through the efforts
of a rather complicated personality, they were postponed, but the time
of terror was at hand.
When Braccio died at Aquila, the Perugians prepared to defend themselves
they knew not well from what. "Each man," says Graziani, "furnished
himself with flour, the ditches and walls were repaired both of the city
and the territory around it, and every one left the open country and
took refuge in fortresses and city palaces." Two courses lay open to
them, and of the two they selected that which seemed least evil. They
submitted themselves once more to the power of the Pope; and on July
29th, 1424, the delighted Martin entered Perugia as its acknowledged
lord and ruler.
Like many famous people of that day Martin had studied at the Perugian
University, and perhaps he had preserved an affection for the city which
he had known in his youth. Anyhow, the terms of peace which he concluded
with the citizens were very mild, and as usual, all the privileges
obtained from Innocent III. were preserved. But this time it was through
the _nobles_ that the Pope had been called into the city. The thin end
of the wedge was surely and irretrievably driven in, and the power of
the nobles was as a matter of fact secure. The Pope himself fostered the
growing power, and amongst others, who on the occasion of his advent
received rich possessions from him, was Malatesta Baglioni. Martin
handed Spello over to his rule, and thus helped to enrich a family whose
members were for a period to wrest the power from the Church itself, and
to set the town ablaze with crime and bloodshed.
* * * * *
The nobles remained at the head of affairs, but, as we have said, there
was one strong personality--a Perugian citizen, Niccolò Piccinino--who
made a last effort, as Braccio Fortebraccio and Michelotti had done
before him, to become that strange creation of the day: a _condottiere_
despot.
Niccolò Piccinino was a follower of Braccio di Montone, and his name
remains stamped on the pages of history for successfully leading the
Braccian troops to battle, and following out the famous tactics of his
master. For twenty years Piccinino maintained a constant rivalry with
Francesco Sforza, as Braccio Fortebraccio had done before him with
Attendolo Sforza, the ancestor of a line of dukes. The ancestry of
Niccolò is both humble and obscure.[21] Some tell us he was the son of a
Perugian butcher, others say, of a peasant from Calisciana near the
city, but it is difficult to get any satisfactory information about him;
he was practically little beyond an adventurer. As quite a boy he left
his home in the Umbrian hills, and started out to seek his fortune
amongst the captains of adventure in the north. Later in life his career
became closely linked with that of Fortebraccio, who loved him because
of his bravery and enthusiasm for the soldier's career. Nature had not
fitted Niccolò for the camp. His health was bad, he was paralysed in one
leg and had to be lifted on to his horse, and because of his miniature
figure he got the nickname of "Piccinino" (the Tiny One); but the small
body contained an undaunted spirit, and his tactics in the field were
quick and decisive. He never knew when he was beaten, but would turn to
strike again while the enemy were boasting of their victory. On one
occasion Piccinino crept into a sack and had himself carried across the
battlefield on a man's shoulder. The enemy (probably Francesco Sforza)
imagined him to be at that moment in an opposite direction, and the
sudden appearance of Piccinino's head from out of the sack, his piercing
eyes gazing at them over his carrier's back, caused general
consternation among the soldiers. Whether this strange manoeuvre won
the day history does not record.
In 1440 Piccinino made a desperate effort to win for himself the
government of Perugia, but Papal power was too deeply rooted in the
city, and he had to rest content with the title of _Gonfaloniere of the
Holy Church_--Supreme Magistrate of the City but acting in the Pope's
name.
Perugia had a terrible time under this ecclesiastical and military yoke.
Three masters pulled her different
[Illustration: NICCOLÒ PICCININO]
ways: Piccinino, the Pope, and the nobles, and each of these three
imposed taxes for their different uses. Piccinino's is an unsatisfactory
career. It is that of a man pouring old wine into new bottles; the trade
of the _condottiere_ ruler was practically dead. The Pope's tactics were
unsatisfactory also. He tried to conciliate two parties. He encouraged
and patronised the nobles and pandered to the populace by encouraging
all kinds of extravagant superstition. There is a horrid tale about the
burning of a witch at this time; and religious processions assumed such
monstrous length that the streets could hardly hold them, and we read
that the leading men got entangled in the tail of the procession which
had not been able to leave the piazza before those who had left it long
ago returned to the starting-point. Passion-preaching, too, became the
fashion, accompanied by grotesque miracle-plays in which a barber from
S. Angelo represented our Saviour; and all those things only served to
increase the morbid passions of the people. In this complicated
situation the nobles came off best, and their power grew and
strengthened rapidly; but the power was evil. As for the attitude
assumed by the former rulers of the city, it is difficult to judge. A
sort of stupor seems to have fallen on the hitherto vigilant _Priori_. A
feeble effort was made in 1444 to drive out the tormentors by payment of
a large sum of money to mercenary soldiers, but these only took the pay
and continued to enjoy themselves at the expense of the town.
Hitherto, at least, the nobles had been one party, fighting for one
cause. But now that the cause was won, now that their own supremacy had
been attained, they began to fight amongst themselves. They hated each
other with a mortal hatred. We no longer hear of fights between nobles
and burghers, but of passionate blood-feuds between the nobles
themselves: between the Oddi, Corgna, Staffa, Arciprete, Baglioni, and
others, and next we read of cousins murdering each other for the sake of
mere ambition. The slightest pretext is seized upon for a skirmish
between the men who, through centuries, had stood together in opposition
to the outside world. A hundred instances are given of their quarrels at
this period. The Della Corgna by way of an example, are one day
preparing to enhance the solemnity of a feast-day by decorating the Arco
dei Priori with box and laurel boughs, and are interrupted in their
pious labours by the Degli Oddi, who begin to pull down the decorations.
There is some dispute about precedence, in their quarter of the
city--some trifling question as to which family has most right to manage
the local festival, a bitter fight ensues, and the whole town is in a
tumult.
Again on another occasion, one of Ridolfo Baglioni's bastard sons wounds
a certain Naldino da Corciano, a friend of the Degli Oddi, and Naldino
hurries off to show his bleeding face to his allies. The Oddi, mad with
fury, rush all armed to the piazza, striking at every Baglioni adherent
whom they meet upon their way. The Baglioni are not slow to appear, as
ready for the fight as anybody. The shops are closed, the citizens arm
themselves, a procession wending its way to the Duomo is thrown into
utter disorder, and even the women thrust their heads out of the windows
and throw down jugs and tiles and pitchers into the street below. The
Bishop, the _Priori_, and the learned doctors of the law leave their
houses and exhort the nobles to lay down their arms; and after a while a
truce is obtained, and the hubbub for the time subsides.
Such scenes as these were of almost daily occurrence in the city, and it
was in vain that the Pope, both by foul means and by fair, attempted to
calm the frantic passions of the rivals.[22] It was in vain that S.
Bernardino, carrying his crucifix before him, came to preach of
brotherly love and unity, in vain the Blessed Colomba uttered mysterious
warnings. It was too late either for Pope or Saint to check so strong a
flood as the ambition of men like the Oddi and the Baglioni. All over
Italy at this period the character of individual families had grown too
strong for outer influences to crush it, and the heads of the Guelph
families were everywhere attempting to form themselves into ruling
princes. In the case of this struggle at Perugia the most successful of
the combatants were the Oddi and the Baglioni. The struggle between
them was a struggle unto death. Now one was driven from the city gates,
and now another; but finally, in 1488, the Oddi were ousted altogether,
and from that minute until the time when the great Farnese Pope came
down with guns and stones and every implement of war as well as curses,
to quell them, the members of the Baglioni family became the dominant
faction of the city. They left their country houses for ever. They fixed
their mighty eyries on the south side of the city, about where the
modern Prefettura stands to-day; from thence they dominated all the
town, and there they lived their wild ill-regulated lives, mingling the
most exquisite luxury with cruel vice. They were a splendid and a
beautiful race of men, and Italy rang with their great names, but their
rule was horrible.
"As I do not wish to swerve from the pure truth," says Matarazzo, who
himself adored them, "I say that from the day the Oddi were expelled our
city went from bad to worse. All the young men followed the trade of
arms. Their lives were disorderly; and every day divers excesses were
divulged, and the city had lost all reason and justice. Every man
administered right unto himself, _propriâ autoritate et manu regiâ_.
Meanwhile the Pope sent many legates, in order that the city might be
brought to order; but all who came returned in dread of being hewn in
pieces; for they threatened to throw some from the windows of the
palace, so that no cardinal or other legate durst approach Perugia,
unless he were a friend of the Baglioni. And the city was brought to
such misery that the most wrongous men were most prized; and those who
had slain two or three men walked as they listed through the palace, and
went with sword or poniard to speak to the podestà and other
magistrates. Moreover, every man of worth was downtrodden by _bravi_
whom the nobles favoured; nor could a citizen call his property his own.
The nobles robbed first one and then another of their goods and land.
All offices were sold or else suppressed; and taxes and extortions were
so grievous that every one cried out. And if a man were in prison for
his head, he had no reason to fear death, provided he had some interest
with a noble."
[Illustration: PALAZZO PUBBLICO]
CHAPTER III
_The Baglioni. Paul III. and last years of the City_
So after centuries of steady struggle fate had at last decreed that the
nobles should have their way. Because the way of the Baglioni is the
most picturesque point in all the annals of Perugia, because it was
crowned by one of the most horrible domestic tragedies of Italian
history, and because, moreover, it happens to have been so admirably and
so vividly recorded, we are sometimes inclined to regard it as the most
important fact about the town. We must, however, remember that it was
only one of the infinite points which make the city's history, and that
the rule of the Baglioni covers a period of not more than fifty years.
By a rare coincidence it happened that exactly at this period, _i.e._,
during the ascendency of the Baglioni, there was living in the city of
Perugia a scholar by name Matarazzo or Maturanzio.[23] This scholar took
upon himself to record day by day the extraordinary exploits of a family
in whose good looks and deeds of violence, their jousts and subterfuges,
he may be truly said not only to have delighted but to have revelled.
To understand the Baglioni and the fashion in which they were regarded
by the men of their day: terror, hatred, fear, and a cringing admiration
being pretty well mixed, one must study the chronicles of Matarazzo in
the original.[24] But as it would be impossible, and even impertinent
for us to try and retell the tale of this tragic history in new English
words, we have quoted at length the words of one who studied it
faithfully and recorded it with a strange vibrating echo of the original
language.[25] We have merely inserted here and there a few notes and
details which seemed to add to the narrative.
"It is not until 1495 that the history of the Baglioni becomes
dramatic, possibly because till then they lacked the pen of
Matarazzo. But from this year forward to their final extinction,
every detail of their doings has a picturesque and awful interest.
Domestic furies, like the revel descried by Cassandra above the
palace of Mycenæ, seem to take possession of the fated house; and
the doom which has fallen on them is worked out with pitiless
exactitude to the last generation. In 1495 the heads of the Casa
Baglioni were two brothers, Guido and Ridolfo, who had a numerous
progeny of heroic sons. From Guido sprang Astorre, Adriano--called
for his great strength Morgante--Gismondo, Marcantonio, and
Gentile. Ridolfo owned Troilo, Gianpaolo, and Simonetto. The first
glimpse we get of these young athletes in Matarazzo's chronicle is
on the occasion of a sudden assault upon Perugia made by the Oddi
and the exiles of their faction in September 1495. The foes of the
Baglioni entered the gates and began breaking the iron chains,
_serragli_, which barred the streets against advancing cavalry.
None of the noble house were on the alert except young Simonetto, a
lad of eighteen, fierce and cruel, who had not yet begun to shave
his chin. In spite of all dissuasion, he rushed forth alone,
bareheaded, in his shirt, with a sword in his right hand and a
buckler on his arm, and fought against a squadron. There at the
barrier of the piazza he kept his foes at bay, smiting men-at-arms
to the ground with the sweep of his tremendous sword, and receiving
on his gentle body twenty-two cruel wounds. While thus at fearful
odds, the noble Astorre mounted his charger and joined him. Upon
his helmet flashed the falcon of the Baglioni with the dragon's
tail that swept behind. Bidding Simonetto tend his wounds, he in
his turn held the square. Listen to Matarazzo's description of the
scene; it is as good as any piece of the _Mort Arthur_: "According
to the report of one who told me what he had seen with his own
eyes, never did anvil take so many blows as he upon his person and
his steed; and they all kept striking at his lordship in such
crowds that the one prevented the other. And so many lances,
partisans, and cross bow quarries, and other weapons made upon his
body a most mighty din, that above every other noise and shout was
heard the thud of those great strokes. But he, like one who had the
mastery of war, set his charger where the press was thickest,
jostling now one and now another; so that he ever kept at least ten
men of his foes stretched on the ground beneath his horse's hoofs;
which horse was a most fierce beast, and gave his enemies what
trouble he best could. And now that gentle lord was all fordone
with sweat and toil, he and his charger; and so weary were they
that scarcely could they any longer breathe. Soon after the
Baglioni mustered in force. One by one their heroes rushed from the
palaces. The enemy were driven back with slaughter; and a war
ensued which made the fair land between Assisi and Perugia a
wilderness for many months." It must not be forgotten that at the
time of these great feats of Simonetto and Astorre young Raphael
was painting in the studio of Perugino. What the whole city
witnessed with astonishment and admiration, he, the keenly
sensitive artist-boy, treasured in his memory. Therefore in the St
George of the Louvre, and in the mounted horseman trampling upon
Heliodorus in the Stanze of the Vatican, victorious Astorre lives
for ever, immortalised in all his splendour by the painter's art.
The grinning griffin on the helmet, the resistless frown upon the
forehead of the beardless knight, the terrible right arm, and the
ferocious steed--all are there as Raphael saw and wrote them on his
brain. One characteristic of the Baglioni, as might be plentifully
illustrated from their annalist, was their eminent beauty which
inspired beholders with an enthusiasm and a love they were far
from deserving by their virtues. It is this, in combination with
their personal heroism, which gives a peculiar dramatic interest to
their doings, and makes the chronicle of Matarazzo more fascinating
than a novel."
Matarazzo was not alone in his admiration for the Baglioni. He tells us
that whenever the "magnificent Guido," his son Astorre, or his nephew
Gianpaolo walked in the piazza every citizen paused at his work to
admire them, and if perchance a stranger passed through Perugia he was
certain to make every effort to see them. The soldiers would hurry from
their tents to see Gianpaolo go by, and anyone walking by this noble's
side seemed dwarfed and insignificant by reason of his great stature and
his noble form. Gismondo, another of Guide's sons, was universally
admired for his splendid horsemanship. He would make his horse leap into
the air, while he sat straight and square in the saddle, not stirring
hand or foot. The citizens looked on marvelling at these feats of skill
and daring. Gismondo was slim, and walked with the lightness of a cat,
so that no man in Perugia, however quick of hearing, knew when he was
coming. The richest and perhaps the handsomest of the Baglioni family
was young Grifonetto Baglioni, whose beauty Matarazzo compares to
Ganymede. He was the son of Grifone and Atalanta Baglioni, and nephew to
Guido and Ridolfo. His father had been stabbed at Ponte Ricciolo in
1477, and he lived with his young mother in one of the most beautiful
houses in Perugia. This palace had been commenced by Malatesta Baglioni
and finished by Braccio Baglioni, who, because of the court of learned
men he gathered round him, and the splendid festivals with which he
honoured the lovely ladies of the city, was called "Lorenzo il Magnifico
di Perugia." The palace was entered by a large and richly-ornamented
hall, hung with beautiful pictures. At the opposite end of the room was
a painting of a woman of most venerable and majestic bearing, and over
her head the word _Perusia_. This grave and queenly lady commanded a
view of all the celebrated men of the Umbrian city, for on one side of
the wall were portraits of the famous captains of adventure, and on the
other those of the most learned of the doctors and scholars, with their
names and a description of their mighty deeds written in full below
them. Grifonetto lived in great magnificence. "He kept numbers of
horses, Barbary steeds, to run in the races, jesters and other
properties pertaining to a gentleman. He even kept a lion; and all who
went to the house compared it to a king's court."
"In 1500, when the events about to be related took place,
Grifonetto was quite a youth. Brave, rich, handsome, and married to
a young wife, Zenobia Sforza, he was the admiration of Perugia. He
and his wife loved each other dearly, and how, indeed, could it be
otherwise, since 'l'uno e l'altro sembravano doi angioli di
Paradiso?'[26] At the same time he had fallen into the hands of bad
and desperate counsellors. A bastard of the house, Filippo da
Braccio, his half-uncle, was always at his side, instructing him
not only in the accomplishments of chivalry, but also in wild ways
that brought his name into disrepute. Another of his familiars was
Carlo Barciglia Baglioni, an unquiet spirit, who longed for more
power than his poverty and comparative obscurity allowed. With them
associated Girolamo della Penna, a veritable ruffian, contaminated
from his earliest youth with every form of lust and violence, and
capable of any crime. These three companions, instigated partly by
the lord of Camerino and partly by their own cupidity, conceived a
scheme for massacring the families of Guido and Ridolfo at one
blow. As a consequence of this wholesale murder, Perugia would be
at their discretion. Seeing of what use Grifonetto by his wealth
and name might be to them, they did all they could to persuade him
to join their conjuration. It would appear that the bait first
offered him was the sovereignty of the city, but that he was at
last gained over by being made to believe that his wife, Zenobia,
had carried on an intrigue with Gianpaolo Baglioni. The dissolute
morals of the family gave plausibility to an infernal trick which
worked upon the jealousy of Grifonetto. Thirsting for revenge, he
consented to the scheme. The conspirators were further fortified by
the accession of Jeronimo della Staffa, and three members of the
house of Corgna. It is noticeable that out of the whole number only
two--Bernardo da Corgna and Filippo da Braccio--were above the age
of thirty. Of the rest, few had reached twenty-five. At so early an
age were the men of those times adepts in violence and treason. The
execution of the plot was fixed for the wedding festivities of
Astorre Baglioni with Lavinia, the daughter of Giovanni Colonna and
Giustina Orsini. At that time the whole Baglioni family were to be
assembled in Perugia, with the single exception of Marcantonio, who
was taking baths at Naples for his health. It was known that the
members of the noble house, nearly all of them condottieri by
trade, and eminent for their great strength and skill in arms, took
few precautions for their safety. They occupied several houses
close together between the Porta San Carlo and the Porta Eburnea,
set no regular guard over their sleeping-chambers, and trusted to
their personal bravery and to the fidelity of their attendants. It
was thought that they might be assassinated in their beds. The
wedding festivities began upon the 28th of July, and great is the
particularity with which Matarazzo describes the doings of each
successive day--processions, jousts, triumphal arches, banquets,
balls, and pageants."
Perugia, it seems, was turned into a veritable garden of loveliness on
this occasion. Rich velvets, brocades, and tapestries hung from the
palace windows, their gorgeous colours mingled with long trails of ivy,
with many shrubs and the branches of blossoming trees, which also filled
the streets. Colossal arches spanned the roads at the different gates
into the city. All vied together to erect the finest arch; and one was
hung all over with tapestries showing the military exploits of the young
Astorre. As the Roman bride passed in, the ladies of Perugia went to
meet her, offering her rich presents. Some were dressed in cloth of
gold and silver, others in silk and velvet, and many of them were lovely
to behold. But Lavinia Colonna excelled them all by the glory of her
broidered gown, and by the pearls and jewels twisted in her hair.
Simonetto Baglioni drove round the city in a triumphal car, and as he
went he cast great quantities of sugared dainties to the crowd, thus
trying, by every means in his power, to add to the merriment of the
marriage-day, and to show that love and comradeship united the Baglioni
family.
But down in the Borgo S. Angelo men were silent and morose, for they
hated these tyrants of Perugia, and held aloof from all rejoicings. They
had noted strange auguries of late, and a whisper went round that evil
was impending. On the first night of the festivities a terrible storm
arose, scattering the decorations in the whirlwind. It was an awful
night, and the young Roman bride shuddered, as above the din of the
storm, she heard the sinister roars of the Baglioni lions.[27] Lavinia
and Astorre were lodged in the palace of their traitorous cousin
Grifonetto, and neither dreamt of the treachery that was so near at
hand.
"The night of the 14th of August was finally set apart for the
consummation of _el gran tradimento_: it is thus that Matarazzo
always alludes to the crime of Grifonetto, with a solemnity of
reiteration that is most impressive. A heavy stone let fall into
the courtyard of Guido Baglioni's palace was to be the signal: each
conspirator was then to run to the sleeping-chamber of his
appointed prey. Two of the principals and fifteen _bravi_ were told
off to each victim: rams and crowbars were prepared to force the
doors if needful. All happened as had been anticipated. The crash
of the falling stone was heard. The conspirators rushed to the
scene of operations. Astorre, who was sleeping in the house of his
traitorous cousin Grifonetto, was slain in the arms of his young
bride, crying, as he vainly struggled, 'Misero Astorre che more
come poltrone!'[28] Simonetto flew to arms, exclaiming to his
brother, 'Non dubitare Gismondo, mio fratello!'[29] He, too, was
soon despatched.[30] Filippo da Braccio, after killing him, tore
from a great wound in his side the still quivering heart, into
which he drove his teeth with savage fury. Old Guido died groaning,
'Ora è gionto il ponto mio,'[31] and Gismondo's throat was cut
while he lay holding back his face that he might be spared the
sight of his own massacre. The corpses of Astorre and Simonetto
were stripped and thrown out naked into the streets. Men gathered
round and marvelled to see such heroic forms, with faces so proud
and fierce even in death. In especial the foreign students likened
them to ancient Romans. But on their fingers were rings, and these
the ruffians of the place would fain have hacked off with their
knives. From this indignity the noble limbs were spared; then the
dead Baglioni were hurriedly consigned to an unhonoured tomb.
Meanwhile the rest of the intended victims managed to escape.
Gianpaolo, assailed by Grifonetto and Gianfrancesco della Corgna,
took refuge with his squire, Maraglia, upon a staircase leading
from his room. While the squire held the passage with his pike
against the foe, Gianpaolo effected his flight over neighbouring
house-roofs. He crept into the attic of some foreign students, who,
trembling with terror, gave him food and shelter, clad him in a
scholar's gown, and helped him to fly in this disguise from the
gates at dawn. He then joined his brother Troilo at Marsciano,
whence he returned without delay to punish the traitors. At the
same time Grifonetto's mother Atalanta, taking with her his wife,
Zenobia, and the two young sons of Gianpaolo, Malatesta and Orazio,
afterwards so celebrated in Italian history for their great feats
of arms and their crimes, fled to her country-house at Landona.
Grifonetto in vain sought to see her there. She drove him from her
presence with curses for the treason and the fratricide that he
had planned. It is very characteristic of these wild natures,
framed of fierce instincts and discordant passions, that his
mother's curse weighed like lead upon the unfortunate young man.
Next day, when Gianpaolo returned to try the luck of arms,
Grifonetto, deserted by the companions of his crime and paralysed
by the sense of his guilt, went out alone to meet him on the public
place. The semi-failure of their scheme had terrified the
conspirators: the horrors of that night of blood unnerved them. All
had fled except the next victim of the feud. Putting his sword to
the youth's throat, Gianpaolo looked into his eyes and said, 'Art
thou here, Grifonetto? Go with God's peace: I will not slay thee,
nor plunge my hand in my own blood, as thou hast done in thine.'
Then he turned and left the lad to be hacked in pieces by his
guard. The untranslatable words which Matarazzo uses to describe
his death are touching from the strong impression they convey of
Grifonetto's goodliness: 'Qui ebbe sua signoria sopra sua nobile
persona tante ferite che suoi membra leggiadre stese in terra.'[32]
None but Greeks felt the charm of personal beauty thus.[33] But
while Grifonetto was breathing out his life upon the pavement of
the piazza, his mother, Atalanta, and his wife Zenobia, came to
greet him through the awe-struck city. As they approached, all men
fell aside and slunk away before their grief. None would seem to
have had a share in Grifonetto's murder. Then Atalanta knelt by her
dying son, and ceased from wailing, and prayed and exhorted him to
pardon those who had caused his death. It appears that Grifonetto
was too weak to speak, but that he made a signal of assent, and
received his mother's blessing at the last: "And then the noble
stripling stretched his right hand to his youthful mother, pressing
the white hand of his mother; and afterwards forthwith he breathed
his soul forth from his beauteous body, and died with numberless
blessings of his mother instead of the curses she had given him
before."
"After the death of Grifonetto and the flight of the conspirators,
Gianpaolo took possession of Perugia. All who were suspected of
complicity in the treason were massacred upon the piazza and in
the cathedral. At the expense of more than a hundred murders, the
chief of the Baglioni found himself master of the city on the 17th
of July. First he caused the cathedral to be washed with wine and
reconsecrated. Then he decorated the Palazzo with the heads of the
traitors and with their portraits in fresco, painted hanging head
downwards, as was the fashion in Italy. Next he established himself
in what remained of the palaces of his kindred, hanging the saloons
with black, and arraying his retainers in the deepest mourning.
Sad, indeed, was now the aspect of Perugia. Helpless and
comparatively uninterested, the citizens had been spectators of
these bloody broils. They were now bound to share the desolation of
their masters. Matarazzo's description of the mournful palace and
the silent town, and of the return of Marcantonio from Naples,
presents a picture striking for its vividness.[34] In the true
style of the Baglioni, Marcantonio sought to vent his sorrow not so
much in tears as by new violence. He prepared and lighted torches,
meaning to burn the whole quarter of S. Angelo; and from this
design he was with difficulty dissuaded by his brother. To such mad
freaks of rage and passion were the inhabitants of a mediæval town
in Italy exposed! They make us understand the _ordinanze di
giustizia_, by which to be a noble was a crime in Florence.
"From this time forward the whole history of the Baglioni family is
one of crime and bloodshed. A curse had fallen on the house, and to
the last of its members the penalty was paid. Gianpaolo himself
acquired the highest reputation throughout Italy for his courage
and sagacity both as a general and a governor."
Gianpaolo is the last member of the Baglioni brood who succeeded in
ruling over his native city, maintaining the despotic traditions of his
predecessors by a system of unconscionable brutality. The personality of
this tyrant is strongly brought forward in Italian histories. Frolliere
gives the following account of the fascination of the outward man:
"Gianpaolo during his life-time was the favoured one of Heaven and
of fortune. He was handsome and of a gracious aspect, pleasant and
benign; eloquent in his conversation, and of great prudence; and
every gesture harmonised with his words and manner. In his desire
to please all, even strangers, if perchance he was unable or
unwilling to serve them, he showed himself so gracious and so
willing, that they left him satisfied and pleased. He was much
given to the love of women and he was greatly loved by them by
reason of his delicate and lordly bearing. He was, indeed, a
valiant and a gallant knight, of admirable and almost divine talent
and resource, as was shown in many of his enterprises and his
actions."[35]
But there was a very different side to this in the character of
Gianpaolo, and we hear that on one occasion
... "he had it in his mind to murder four citizens of Perugia, his
enemies. He looked calmly on while his kinsmen Eusebio and Taddeo
Baglioni, who had been accused of treason, were hewn to pieces by
his guard. His wife, Ippolita de' Conti, was poniarded on her Roman
farm; on hearing the news, he ordered a festival in which he was
engaged to proceed with redoubled merriment."[36]
Gianpaolo was also a good diplomatist, as cautious as he was cruel, and
one of the most striking pictures in Perugian history is that of his
reception of Julius II. in 1506, on which occasion the Pope came to
visit the tyrant in person. The Baglioni was perfectly well aware that
Julius had come for the purpose of re-establishing papal dominion in the
city; but he was too cautious to shove His Holiness over a wall which he
was building at the time, and thus to counterfeit the papal plans and
set all Italy ablaze with admiration at the audacity of his action:
"While Michelangelo was planning frescoes and venting his bile in
sonnets, the fiery Pope had started on his perilous career of
conquest. He called the cardinals together, and informed them that
he meant to free the cities of Perugia and Bologna from their
tyrants. God, he said, would protect His Church; he could rely on
the support of France and Florence. Other popes had stirred up wars
and used the services of Generals; he meant to take the field in
person. Louis XII. is reported to have jeered among his courtiers
at the notion of a high-priest riding to the wars. A few days
afterwards, on the 27th of August, the Pope left Rome attended by
twenty-four cardinals and 500 men-at-arms. He had previously
secured the neutrality of Venice and a promise of troops from the
French court. When Julius reached Orvieto, he was met by Gianpaolo,
the bloody and licentious despot of Perugia. Notwithstanding
Baglioni knew that Julius was coming to assert his supremacy, and
notwithstanding the Pope knew that this might drive to desperation
a man so violent and stained with crime as Baglioni, they rode
together to Perugia, where Gianpaolo paid homage and supplied his
haughty guest with soldiers. The rashness of this act of Julius
sent a thrill of admiration throughout Italy, stirring that sense
of _terribilità_ which fascinated the imagination of the men of the
Renaissance. Machiavelli, commenting upon the action of the
Baglioni, remarks that the event proved how difficult it is for a
man to be perfectly and scientifically wicked."[37]
* * * * *
"At last the time came for Gianpaolo to die by fraud and violence.
Leo X., anxious to remove so powerful a rival from Perugia, lured
him in 1520 to Rome under the false protection of a papal
safe-conduct. After a short imprisonment he had him beheaded in the
Castle of S. Angelo. It was thought that Gentile, his first cousin,
sometime Bishop of Orvieto, but afterwards the father of two sons
in wedlock with Giulia Vitelli--such was the discipline of the
Church at this epoch--had contributed to the capture of Gianpaolo,
and had exulted in his execution. If so, he paid dear for his
treachery; for Orazio Baglioni, the second son of Gianpaolo and
captain of the Church under Clement VII., had him murdered in 1527,
together with his two nephews Fileno and Annibale. This Orazio was
one of the most bloodthirsty of the whole brood. Not satisfied with
the assassination of Gentile, he stabbed Galeotto, the son of
Grifonetto, with his own hand in the same year. Afterwards he died
in the kingdom of Naples while leading the Black Bands in the
disastrous war which followed the sack of Rome. He left no son.
Malatesta, his elder brother, became one of the most celebrated
generals of the age, holding the batons of the Venetian and
Florentine republics, and managing to maintain his ascendency in
Perugia in spite of the persistent opposition of successive popes.
But his name is best known in history for one of the greatest
public crimes. Intrusted with the defence of Florence during the
siege of 1530, he sold the city to his enemy, Pope Clement,
receiving for the price of this infamy certain privileges and
immunities which fortified his hold upon Perugia for a season. All
Italy was ringing with the great deeds of the Florentines, who for
the sake of their liberty transformed themselves from merchants
into soldiers, and withstood the united powers of pope and emperor
alone. Meanwhile Malatesta, whose trade was war, and who was being
largely paid for his services by the beleaguered city, contrived by
means of diplomatic procrastination, secret communication with the
enemy, and all the arts that could intimidate an army of recruits,
to push affairs to a point at which Florence was forced to
capitulate without inflicting the last desperate glorious blow she
longed to deal her enemies. The universal voice of Italy condemned
him. When Matteo Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, heard what he had
done, he cried before the Pregadi in conclave, 'He has sold that
people and that city, and the blood of those poor citizens ounce by
ounce, and has donned the cap of the biggest traitor in the world.'
Consumed with shame, corroded by an infamous disease, and
mistrustful of Clement, to whom he had sold his honor, Malatesta
retired to Perugia, and died in 1531. He left one son, Ridolfo, who
was unable to maintain himself in the lordship of his native city.
After killing the papal legate, Cinzio Filonardi, in 1534, he was
dislodged four years afterwards, when Paul III. took final
possession of the place as an appanage of the Church, razed the
houses of the Baglioni to the ground, and built upon their site the
Rocca Paolina....
... "Ridolfo Baglioni and his cousin Braccio, the eldest son of
Grifonetto, were both captains of Florence. The one died in battle
in 1554, the other in 1559. Thus ended the illustrious family. They
are now represented by descendants from females, and by contadini,
who preserve their name and boast a pedigree, of which they have no
written records."[38]
* * * * *
Thus the Baglioni practically killed themselves--stamped out their own
power through their own passions. It remained for the Church to crush if
possible the spirit of liberty and of self-government in the people of
Perugia. It is as though a mighty wheel spun round and we next find the
city wholly and entirely in the clutches of Rome.
* * * * *
When the last strong member of the terrible brood, Ridolfo Baglioni,
forced his way back into Perugia with the evident intention of ruling
there, he seems to have ignored the fact that he had something more
powerful to face than the opposition of the people. Ridolfo set fire to
the people's palace, but he went much further, he assassinated the
Pope's Legate. This outrage gave the final push to Rome, who had so
often and so impotently interfered before, and Paul Farnese, the
reigning Pope, listened, we hear, with the profoundest displeasure to
the account of this barefaced murder. He at once took the high hand. He
sent troops from Rome to drive out Ridolfo, who retired before them to
seek a better fortune elsewhere. He then had the walls of Spello,
Bettona, Bastia, and other strongholds of Ridolfo Baglioni demolished,
and finally, in order to make his policy more permanent and decisive,
the great Farnese Pope arrived in person at Perugia.
Paul's arrival is one of the most impressive points in the annals of the
town. The rule of the Baglioni had been so powerful and so picturesque
that in tracing it one is inclined to ignore the undercurrent of affairs
in the city. As a matter of fact the old order of rule had not really
died out under that of the nobles, and in the description of Paul's
reception we find the familiar names of companies and _Priori_ occurring
again and again with all their followers and titles.
The Perugians, wearied to death by the despotic rule of the nobles,
hailed the advent of a much more despotic Pope with blind and excessive
joy. Paul came in triumph, and in triumph he was received. Great arches
were built for him and for his cardinals to pass beneath, and since the
town had not sufficient money to spend on his reception they even melted
down a beautiful silver ship belonging to the city plate chest. It was
on the last day of August 1535, and at about midnight, that "His Blessed
Holiness" arrived at the gates with fourteen cardinals and some
companies of 600 or 700 horse and 700 infantry. The Pope rode up on
horseback, dressed in scarlet. Drums and tambours heralded his approach.
The cardinals rode by two and two. On either side of His Holiness rode
his two nephews: the Cardinals Alexander Farnese and Guido Ascanio
Sforza. The _Priori_, all in new and gorgeous robes, preceded by the
Holy Eucharist, came out to meet him, and through their ambassador or
_nunzio_ they presented to His Holiness a silver basin containing the
keys of the city. Then a learned doctor of the University delivered "a
short but elegant address," to which the Pope listened attentively, and
for that night the Pope turned in to sleep in the monastery of S.
Pietro. The following day he entered the city with extraordinary pomp
and took up his abode in the Palazzo Pubblico, where the _Priori_ had
vacated their own rooms in order to give him proper space; and thither
all the professors and all the members of the city guilds and
confraternities arrived that afternoon to kiss his foot.
Paul's first visit to Perugia may be called a triumphal progress rather
than anything else. He gave great gifts of grain to the city, and he
conferred countless benefits upon its churches and its clergy. But he
came to rule, and not to pamper or caress. For a time all went well.
The convents and the monasteries grew fat and prosperous, the Baglioni
were away, and the people apparently at peace; but storms were brewing.
After three years of passive submission Perugia found cause to revolt
against her new ruler as she had done against her old. In 1538 Paul III.
sent out his decree for raising the price of salt by one half in all the
pontifical states, and the Perugians revolted at once against an
imposition which they had good reason to feel unjust.[39]
Revolution was declared. Alfano Alfani, the chief of the magistrates,
tried to calm the fury of his countrymen, and at first only humble
entreaties were sent down to Rome imploring Paul III. to remove a tax so
odious to the people. But the Pope was too much in need of money to
listen to these prayers. His only answer was an excommunication, which
punishment was not unfamiliar to the people of Perugia. During the month
of March 1539 the city lay under an interdict, no masses were said, no
sacraments given, and the churches seemed as the monuments of a people
long since dead. Every day the murmurings of the Perugians grew and
strengthened, and finally they took the high-handed measure of arranging
matters for themselves. They elected twenty-five citizens who were
called "the twenty-five defenders of justice in the city of Perugia,"
and before many days were out the "twenty-five" had obtained unlimited
power. They exercised an independent and undisputed authority and pushed
the _priori_ entirely to one side. Their endeavours to protect their
liberty and resist the Pope's authority soon roused his anger. The
Farnese was not a person to be trifled with, and this barefaced
rebellion of the little Umbrian city had to be crushed by prompt and
powerful means; so the Pope sent his son, Pier Luigi Farnese, at the
head of 10,000 Italians and 3000 Spaniards to meet the rulers in the
field.
A strange piece of history follows. The Perugians veer round utterly and
call in as their leader Ridolfo Baglioni to help them against a Pope,
whom but three short years ago they had welcomed as their best
benefactor.
Ridolfo went forth to fight against the Papal troops with a mighty
flourish of trumpets, but we only hear faint rumours of a skirmish near
Ponte S. Giovanni where one or two men were killed, and a few more
tumbled off their chargers. The whole account reads like a farce, and
yet we know that men and women regarded it with deadly earnest at the
time. The city was all unhinged. An extraordinary religious phase which
had nothing to do with the Church came over her. The large crucifix
which is still to be seen in S. Lorenzo, was placed above the main
entrance to the Duomo, and here the people came to pray and tell their
beads with an unwonted fervour. Continual processions wound their slow
way up from S. Domenico to the Cathedral square, and we hear that the
cries for mercy were deafening throughout the city.
On a dark night, by the flickering light of many torches, Maria Podiano,
the Chancellor of the Commune, delivered a touching oration, and in the
sight of all the citizens he placed the city keys at the foot of the
great crucifix on the outside of the Cathedral--Christ was to be their
defender, Christ their leader, to fight against a Pope![40]
But it was impossible that Perugia should be able to stand against such
an army as that of Paul III., and Ridolfo Baglioni was the first to see
that his side must lose. With less loyalty than might have been expected
from this would-be despot of Perugia, he edged towards peace, and
finally, on the 3rd June 1540, peace was concluded between Pier Luigi
Farnese and Ridolfo Baglioni. Thus it happened that once again Perugia
was cast under the shadow of Pontifical Rome. Neighbouring towns had
abandoned her at the moment when she wrestled for her liberty; Ridolfo
Baglioni had given her but a half-hearted help, and the Perugians were
driven to confess that the only course which now lay open to them was an
apology to the Pope. Twenty-five ambassadors were therefore sent to
Rome. Dressed in long black robes with halters round their necks, the
unhappy Perugian envoys crouched in the portico of S. Peter's awaiting
their absolution.
Pardon was obtained, but at a heavy price. The ambassadors returned home
bearing the news that Paul had forgiven the city; but the titles of
Preservers of Ecclesiastical Obedience, borne by the Pope's magistrates,
warned Perugia quite sufficiently that her old forms of government were
wiped away for ever. A few days later and the foundations of Paul III.'s
fortress were laid on the site of the razed palaces of the Baglioni, and
the citizens were compelled to lend their help in the erection of this
colossal stronghold which was to prove their bane for centuries to
follow. On its inner walls it bore the following inscription, which
fully indicated the feelings and intentions of the indomitable Farnese:
_Ad coercendam Perusinorum Audaciam_.[41]
Writhing beneath the yoke of priests, the Perugians soon regretted even
the rule of the Baglioni: "Help me if you can," Malatesta Baglioni had
cried as he lay dying at Bettona in 1531, "for after my death you will
be made to draw the cart like oxen"; and Frolliere, chronicling these
words, remarks: "This has been fulfilled to the last letter, for all
have borne not only the yoke but the goad."[42]
In the same year (1540) as that in which Paul III. laid the foundations
of his famous fortress, a society, which proved of invaluable service in
furthering the work and wishes of the Papacy, sprang forth into vigorous
life, and gradually the chief power in Perugia fell into the hands of
the Jesuits. These agents of the Pope proceeded to convert the city
wholesale by means of religious ceremonies, general confessions,
preachings in every square, and in all the corners of the streets, and
colossal processions, headed by missionaries wearing crowns of thorns
and bearing enormous crosses. Industries died out, poverty, famine, and
pestilence decimated the city, and in 1728, from a petition presented to
Clement X., it appears that Perugia was reduced to such a state of
wretchedness as to bring tears to the eyes of those who remembered her
former prosperity.
* * * * *
The final history of Perugia, down to the present day, may be compressed
into a very few lines. Up to the
[Illustration: FORTRESS OF PAUL III. SHOWING THE UPPER PART NOW OCCUPIED
BY THE PREFETTURA, ETC., AND THE LOWER WING WHICH COVERED THE SITE OF
THE PRESENT PIAZZA D'ARMI
(_From a water-colour sketch now in the possession of Madame Brufani at
Perugia._)]
end of the last century, she was practically ruled by the Popes, and was
a city of the Papal States. Her immense convents and churches were
filled with monks and nuns. In 1549, Julius III. restored to her some of
her ancient privileges of which Paul had deprived her, and in some sort
she regained her old forms of government, but she could never again be
called by her historians an independent State. In 1797, during the
general upheaval of Europe which followed the revolution in France, she
underwent a quite new phase, and became a French Prefecture under the
title of _Departimento del Trasimeno_. General la Valette levied tribute
from the citizens, who were further harassed by the sudden break up of
the Roman Republic and an Austrian occupation. After the Battle of
Marengo, in 1800, Perugia ceased to be Pontifical, and in 1809 she was
formally annexed to the French Empire, and made a canton of Spoleto
under a sub-prefect. By Napoleon's orders the convents of both sexes and
of all orders were suppressed, the bishops and prelates were sent to
Rome in carriage loads, and the poor monks and nuns were unfrocked and
literally carted through the streets to their homes. When a turn came in
the fortunes of the empire, Perugia became the victim of another change,
and with the partial introduction of the papal sway, the monks and nuns
returned to their convents.
In spite of its tyrannies, the Napoleonic occupation had given the
Perugians a taste for better things than a papal despotism, and they
never again found rest in the care of the Pope. They fretted and chafed
under the Pope's people; the Pope's fortress became a veritable eye-sore
to them, the daily sight of its walls burned into their hearts like
red-hot nails, and whenever they could they pulled a part of it down.
At last, in 1859, they rose in open rebellion, and Papal troops were
sent by Pius IX. to besiege the town. Some 2000 of the Swiss Guard, led
by Colonel Schmid, arrived from Rome to quell the insurrection. Bonazzi
gives a vivid account of the atrocities these men committed in the city.
They killed all whom they laid hands on in their raids as they passed
through the streets, crying aloud as they went that "their master the
Pope had given them orders that none should be spared." S. Pietro was
forced, and, notwithstanding the protests of the Abbot and his monks,
its vestments were torn to threads, gold and silver ornaments carried
away, and not even the archives with their wealth of long accumulated
missals escaped the vandalism of the papal troops. (See p. 162.)
In 1860 the Swiss were finally dislodged by Victor Emanuel's envoy,
General Manfredo Fanti; and, unarmed and closely guarded by a double
file of the King's soldiers, the last representatives of papal power
were driven from the fortress of Paul III., and having passed a night in
the cathedral, they were ousted for ever from the precincts of Perugia.
Paul III.'s fortress had now been entirely pulled down by an infinite
number of willing hands, and the present great buildings of the
Prefettura, which represents the modern government of a prosperous town,
took their place on the former site of the Baglioni palaces.
* * * * *
With the loss of Perugia's independent existence in 1540 the light of
romance was lost to her history. But from that minute, and in spite of
all her anguish and humiliation, she learned the final lesson of how to
live at peace within herself, and be at peace with all her neighbours.
This lesson she had never learned through all her battlings in the past.
She had risen fighting, and fighting she had flourished. It would be
inaccurate to say that fighting she fell.
Perugia never fell. She was merely caught and tamed. Anyone familiar
with the cities of Umbria will at once recognise in this, their head,
something forcible, strong, grand, and enduring, which neither nobles,
emperors, nor popes were able to beat out of her; something which has
kept her what she was at the beginning: Perugia, the city of plenty, and
fitted her to be what she is now: Perugia the capital of Umbria; as
grand in her unity with her great mother, as she was powerful in her
strife.
CHAPTER IV
_The City of Perugia_
"C'est une vieille ville du moyen âge, ville de défense et de
refuge, posée sur un plateau escarpé, d'où toute la vallée se
découvre."--H. TAINE, _Voyage en Italie_.
Having glanced thus rapidly over the history of Perugia we turn with
fresh interest to examine the city itself, and to trace through what
remains of its earliest walls and houses, the character of those same
fascinating, if pugnacious persons, who built those walls, fought over
them, lived and died within them.
Perugia is an excellent mirror of history, combining on its surface not
only a reflection of the immortal past but of a prosperous present, and
with the exception of ancient Roman influences, which, for some obscure
reason, have almost entirely vanished, it would be difficult to find a
nest of man more perfect or unchanged in all its parts. Battered and
abused by warfare and by weather the stones of the middle ages may be
and are, but they have not been destroyed, and there is something grand
and clean in the modern buildings which confirms, rather than destroys,
the æsthetic charm and splendour of the old.
Perugia is very distinctly the living capital of the province. After
travelling through Umbria and studying one by one the little dreamy
old-world cities--each perched upon its separate hillside, which seem to
have fallen asleep long centuries ago, letting the silence of
[Illustration: PERUGIA FROM THE ROAD TO THE CAMPO SANTO]
the grass close in on their paved streets, as the need of
self-protection vanished--one returns to Perugia and recognises that
she, at least, has never died. She is often very silent, very brown and
grim; she has her dreams, but the hope in her: the desire for rule and
power, has never really vanished. The most remarkable change about the
town, if we are to take what we read of her history for certain fact, is
the change in her people. The inhabitants of Perugia, in every class,
are unmistakably gentle and amiable, both in mind and manner. They are
courteous to strangers, kind, helpful and calm. Even the street boys ask
one for stamps instead of pennies. In their leisure they are gay, and in
their work persistent. They are never frantic or demonstrative. As one
sits at one's window on warm spring nights, one almost wishes the people
in the street would either fight or sing, but they do neither. They take
their pleasures calmly, and hang upon their town walls by the hour,
gazing out upon a view they love. Perhaps in their inmost hearts they
are counting the numberless little cities, all of which their fathers
won for them in battles of the past. The fact of their supremacy may
make them thrill, but there is nothing to mark their triumph in their
faces.
This is no place in which to discuss the rapid change of personality in
the Perugians. We note it as a fact, and pass to a description of the
town itself, which certainly contains abundant marks of that same
"warlike" character which time has washed away from the minds of its
inhabitants.
The city is built, as we have shown in our first chapter, on one of the
low hills formed after thousands of years by the silting up of the
refuse brought down by the Tiber, and not, as one naturally at first
imagines, on a spur of the actual Apennines which are divided from her
by the river. Much of the power of the town in the past may be traced to
her extraordinary topographical position. Perugia stands 1705 feet above
the level of the sea, and 1200 above that of the Tiber. She stands
perfectly alone at the extreme edge of a long spine of hill, and she
commands the Tiber and the two great roads to Rome.[43] But looked at
from a merely picturesque point of view, few towns can boast of a more
powerful charm. Perugia, if one ignores her history, is not so much a
town as an eccentric freak of nature. All the winds and airs of heaven
play and rush around her walls in summer and in winter. The sun beats
down upon her roofs; one seems to see more stars at night, above her
ramparts, than one sees in any other town one knows of. All Umbria is
spread like a great pageant at her feet, and the pageant is never one
day or one hour like the other. Even in a downpour, even in a tempest
the great view fascinates. In spring the land is green with corn and oak
trees, and pink with the pink of sainfoin flowers. In winter it seems
smaller, nearer; brown and gold, and very grand at sundown. On clear
days one can easily trace a whole circle of Umbrian cities from the
Umbrian capital. To the east Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Montefalco, and
Trevi. The hill above Bettona hides the town of Spoleto, but its ilex
woods and its convent of Monte Luco are distinct enough. To the south
Todi and Deruta stand out clear upon their hillsides; and to the east
the home of Perugino, Città della Pieve, rises half hidden in its
oakwoods. Early in the mornings you will see the mists lift slowly from
the Tiber; at night the moon will glisten on its waters, drawing your
fancy down to Rome. Strange lights shine upon the clouds behind the
ridge which covers Trasimene, and to the north the brown hills rise and
swell, fold upon fold, to meet the Apennines. In autumn and in winter
the basin of the old Umbrian lake will often fill for days with mists,
but the Umbrian towns and hamlets rise like the birds above them, and
one may live in one of these in splendid sunshine, whilst looking down
upon a sea of fog which darkens all the people of the plain.
The inhabitants of Perugia swear by the healthy nature of their air, and
indeed, were it not for the winds, the most fragile constitution would
probably flourish in the high hill city. But it must be confessed that
there come days when man and horse quiver like dead leaves before the
tempest, and when the very houses seem to rock. Indeed, it would be
almost impossible to exaggerate the arctic power of a Perugian
whirlwind. Yet the average temperature is mild, and myrtles grow to the
size of considerable trees in the villa gardens round the town.
To fully understand the city of Perugia, the marvellous fashion of its
building, and the way in which its houses have become a part of the
landscape and seem to creep about and cling to the unsteady crumbling
soil, one should pass out into the country through one of its gates,
and, rambling round the roads and lanes which wind beneath its walls,
look ever up and back again towards the town. In this way only is it
possible to understand what man can do with Nature, and how, with the
centuries, Nature can gather to herself man's handiwork and make of it a
portion for herself. Birds and beasts have built in this same fashion,
but rarely except in Umbria have men.
"The unstable quality of the soil on which Perugia is built," writes
Mariotti, "has made strong walls and very costly buildings a necessity,"
and he goes on to point out the different and expensive ways in which
the town has been bolstered up with solid masonry. The Etruscans were
the first to recognise this necessity. They may have been a peaceful and
a rather bourgeois set of human beings, differing in all ways from
their combative successors, but they understood the science of building,
and their walls, which encompassed only about one-third of the space
covered by the mediæval town, remain a monument of splendid solid
masonry wherever they can be traced.
[Illustration: ETRUSCAN ARCH. PORTA EBURNEA]
* * * * *
The Etruscan walls are a marked feature of some Umbrian cities, and
although it is rather the fashion to dispute their authenticity in
Perugia, the bits which remain of them there are probably quite genuine.
They have, however, become such a part of the mediæval and the modern
town, and are often so embedded in later buildings, that without close
study it is difficult to trace them; we have therefore marked their
course in red on the map of the town.
Five of the present gates of the town, namely, _Porta Eburnea_, _Porta
Susanna_, _Porta Augusta_, _Porta Mandola_, and _Porta Marzia_ are the
genuine old gates of the Etruscan town, and although the Romans altered
them a little, enlarging them from below, a great part of their masonry
is the work of the Etruscans, and from three to four thousand years old.
Of these gates, the _Porta Augusta_ is familiar to every one, as it is
one of the most remarkable and impressive features of the town. Rome and
the Renaissance have combined to give it a fantastic and a fascinating
appearance, even as these same influences have made a miniature museum
of the now disused _Porta Marzia_. Strangely enough the work of the
Etruscan masons is far better preserved than any which followed them,
and the great blocks of travertine neatly placed (as some suppose
without mortar) on one another, are easily distinguishable from those
built above and below them. Perugia always felt a certain respect for
her oldest walls, and even in the fifteenth century, when she was in her
prime, and bristling with new towers and churches, the work of the dead
people was respected. In 1475 we read that a law was passed for the
preservation of the Etruscan walls, as "they were very marvellous, and
worthy to be preserved into all eternity."
Beyond the city walls nothing remains of the Etruscans at Perugia,
except what is found in their tombs. That the town was rich in temples
and other beauties we may gather, but these, together with the houses,
were
[Illustration: MEDIÆVAL STAIRCASE IN THE VIA BARTOLO]
destroyed when Augustus took the town in 40 B.C., and when her devoted
citizen, Caius Cestius, set fire to his native city, to cover her
disgrace. Of the Roman occupation, which covered a period of many
centuries, no trace remains in Perugia. The present town is therefore a
monument of the purest mediæval building crowned by some rare and
beautiful bits of Renaissance architecture.
But before entering into a description of the city, it may be well to
insist once more on the fact already made plain in our history, that if
men made Perugia, men also marred her.[44] The impatience of man is
everywhere discernible in her streets her palaces and churches, and only
the latest buildings have their towers and stones intact. The towers of
S. Pietro, S. Domenico, and others have had their tops all truncated by
popes, by nobles, and by people in moments of their fury or their
vengeance. The city was built for warfare and defence, and not for
beauty, luxury and peace. In these comparatively quiet times of ours we
go about in foreign towns and look for art, and art alone. We seem to
forget that art is but a small affair--a little landmark in the history
of nations. There is an art in Umbria, an art so pure, so sweet, so
tender that thinking of it we may easily forget the history of her men,
or, if remembering, we seem to dream a dual dream. The art of Perugia
was, maybe, the outcome of her almost fanatical religion, but the wars
of her inhabitants have always been her life-blood. The very first
walls were built for defence, or, as some say, to store the crops, the
corn and hay, in; and the houses of the earliest mediæval town were also
built purely with a view to personal safety and protection. Bonazzi
gives a curious account of the growth of the city, and the almost
fantastic fashion in which its inhabitants hammered its houses together,
and then proceeded to live in them. "There were," he says, describing
the town in about 1100 and 1200, "few monuments or buildings of
importance up to the sixteenth century. The houses were all on one
floor, the sun barely reached them; some of them were of stone and
bricks, but the greater part of mud, clay and straw. Hence incessant and
considerable fires, increased by the lack of chimneys. And they were so
inconveniently arranged that often eight or ten persons slept in a
single room. A motto, a saint, some small sign took the place of our
modern numbers, and the lamp which burned in front of the many shrines
served to light the streets at nightfall. There were no flags or
pavements then upon the streets, which took their names from the
churches or houses of the nobles which happened to look down upon them;
these were narrow and tortuous, simply because they grew without any
method or premeditation, they were horrible to behold as all the dirt
was thrown into them, and because of the herds of swine which passed
along them, grunting and squeaking as they went."[45] Bonazzi next goes
on to trace the topography of the mediæval town, which was much smaller
than the present one, and lacking in large monuments. There was no Corso
in those days, no Piazza Sopramuro, no Palazzo Pubblico. Where the
present cathedral now stands there was only the little old church of S.
Lorenzo and a big and beautiful tower with a cock on the top of it. The
towers of Perugia were a most marked feature of her architecture and,
indeed, in old writings she is always mentioned as _Turrena_ because of
them.[46] "About this time," says Bonazzi, "another great work began in
our city, which was continued into the following centuries. The feudal
lords who came in from their own places in the country to inhabit the
town, brought with them each the tradition of his own strong tower in
the abandoned castle. Great therefore was the competition between them
of who should build the highest, and this each noble did, not so much
for decoration as for a means of defence and of offence, and according
to the amount of power possessed by himself or by his neighbour.... In
the shadow of the massive feudal towers," Bonazzi writes in another
place, "like grass which is shaded by giant plants, rose the little
houses of the poor. The more elegant houses were of terra-cotta (bricks)
without plaster or mortar, and their windows were arched in the Roman
fashion.[47] After 600 they were roofed with flat tiles in imitation of
the Lombards."
The city gates were always closed at nightfall, and some of the streets
were blocked by means of huge iron chains which stretched across the
road, preventing the passage of horse or carts, from one house to
another. One can still see the hooks and holes belonging to these
somewhat barbaric defences in some of the more solid houses of Perugia;
and in the neighbouring town of Spello the chains themselves have been
left hanging to one of the houses. In 1276 we read that the law of
closing the city gates was abolished, but a little later on it was again
found necessary to barricade the town at nightfall, and during some of
the fights between the nobles in 1400 and in 1500 we hear of the
difficulties which one or the other party had to combat in the "chains
across their path."
Strange scattered relics of this nest of mediæval man linger and come
down to us even in the nineteenth century. Amongst these are the _porte
del mortuccio_, or doors of the dead. All the best houses had these
doors alongside of their house-doors, but they are bricked up now and
quite disused, and might easily be ignored in passing through the
streets. The _porta del mortuccio_ is tall, narrow, and pointed at the
top; it is, indeed, just wide enough to pass a coffin through. It seems
that in very early days, even so far back as the Etruscans, there was a
superstition that through the door where Death had passed, Death must
enter in again. By building a separate door, which was only used by the
dead, the spirit of Death passed out with the corpse, the narrow door
was closely locked behind it, and the safety of the living was secured,
as far as the living can secure, from Death. Other charming details of
the mediæval city are the house doors. They are built of travertine or
_pietra serena_, and have little garlands of flowers and fruit bound
with ribbons, and delicate friezes above them. Some of them have very
beautiful Latin inscriptions, which show a strong religious sentiment.
We quote a few of them here: _Janua coeli_ (door of heaven, over a
church); _Pulchra janua ubi honesta domus_ (beautiful the door of the
house which is honest); _A Deo cuncta--a domino omnia_ (all things from
God); _Ora ut vivas et Deo vives_ (pray to live and thou shalt live to
God); _Prius mori quam fædari_ (die rather than be disgraced); _In
parvis quies_ (in small things peace); _Solicitudo mater divitiarum_
(carefulness is the mother of riches); _Ecce spes I.H.S. mea semper_
(Christ always my hope).
Over one or two of the doorways in Perugia you will find almost
byzantine bits of tracery with figures of unknown animals--beasts of the
Apocalypse--carved in grey travertine all round them. One of the very
earliest bits of mediæval building is the fragment of a door of this
sort, belonging to the first palace of the _Priori_, which is now almost
buried in the more modern buildings of the sixteenth century. There is
another amusing procession of beasts over a gateway below S. Ercolano.
These odd animal friezes were probably first designed for some sort of
closed market where beasts were sold, and the old Pescheria has
medallions of _lasche_ on its walls.
As for the ways and manners of the people who inhabited this mediæval
city, Ciatti and other writers supply us with plenty of fantastic
information:
"Perugia lies beneath the sign of the Lion and of the Virgin," Ciatti
says in his account, which is as usual, unlike the account of anybody
else, and highly entertaining, "and from this cause it comes that the
city is called _Leonina_[48] and _Sanguinia_, and the habits of the
Perugians are neither luxurious nor effeminate. Like those of whom
Siderius writes, they came forth strong in war, they delighted in fish,
were humorous in speech, swift in counsel, and loved the law of the
Pope.... The women," he continues with a certain monastic indifference
to female charm, "were not beautiful, although Siderius calls them
elegant;[49] the genius of Perugia was ever more inclined to the
exercise of arms than the cultivation of beauty, and many famous
captains have brought fame to this their native city through their brave
deeds. In Tuscany the Sienese have the reputation of being frivolous,
the Pisans astute and malicious, the Florentines slow and serious, and
the Perugians ferocious and of a warlike spirit."
Concerning the clothes and the feasts of this combative race of people
who lived for warfare rather than for delight, we hear that they were
accustomed to wear a great deal of fur, the nobles using pelisses of
martin and of sable, the poor, sheep or foxes' skins. The fur tippets
still worn by the canons of cathedrals in Italian towns in winter are
probably a remnant of these days. For the rest an adaptation of the
Roman tunic was perhaps worn by the men, whilst the women kept to the
tradition of the Etruscan headgear. "Victuals," Bonazzi tells us, "were
of a coarse description, more lard and pepper was eaten in those days,
than meat and coffee in ours. But at the feasts of the priests and
nobles an incredible quantity of exquisite viands was consumed; great
animals stuffed with dainties were cooked entire, and monstrous pasties
served at table, from which, when the knife touched them, a living and
jovial dwarf jumped out upon the table, unexpected and to the great
delight of all the company."
* * * * *
But from the Age of Darkness men awoke both in their manners and in
their buildings. Perugia of the Middle Ages shook the sleep from off her
heavy eyelids, and with that passionate impulse towards Light which was
perhaps the secret of the Renaissance, she too strove toward the
Beautiful, and in a hurried, fevered fashion, she too decked herself
with fairer things than castle towers and hovels. The fourteenth and the
fifteenth centuries were, as we know, the Age of Gold in later art, and
Perugia, in spite of all her tumults, in spite of her feuds, and even
her passionate religious abstinences, woke with the waking world. Most
of her churches, and most of those monuments which mark her as a point
for travellers, date from that period. "And at that time," says the
chronicler Fabretti, "there was so great a building going on in
different parts of the city that neither mortar nor stones nor masons
could have been procured even for money, unless a number of Lombards had
come in to build. And they were building the palace of the _Priori_
(Palazzo Pubblico), they were building S. Lorenzo, Santa Maria dei
Servi, S. Domenico, S. Francesco, the houses of Messer Raniero ... the
tower of the Palazzo, and numerous other houses of private citizens all
at that same time."
But it was not merely a love of beauty which prompted the Perugians to
this sudden departure in the way of architecture; the spirit of the
great saint of Umbria had much to do with it. In Perugian chronicles and
histories we find a strange silence about the influence of S. Francis on
a city which was only separated by some fourteen miles from Assisi. Yet
it is not possible that so strong a force as that of this man's
preaching could have been kept outside the walls of the neighbour town,
and Ciatti declares that at one time nearly a third part of the
inhabitants of Perugia took the Franciscan habit. In 1500 and 1600 there
were more than fifty convents in Perugia, many of which had sixty to
eighty inhabitants, but that was during the rule of the popes. Of the
great period of building in the fourteenth century, which included many
fine churches and convents, the buildings of the people and not of the
priests remain intact. The splendid Palazzo Pubblico and Pisano's
fountain in the square belong to this period. But because the work of
the Renaissance is so conspicuous and charming we have described it in
another place, and in our description of the town have lingered rather
over the fragments of the Etruscan and the mediæval city.
As it would be impossible in this small book to give anything beyond a
cursory sketch of all the different buildings of the town, we have
decided to deal with the details of some of the principal ones, leaving
the rest for the discovery of those whose leisure and intelligence will
always make such exploration a delight. There is no lack of excellent
guide-books to Perugia. Of the fuller and rarer ones we would mention
those of Siepi and Orsini and the more modern one of Count Rossi Scotti.
These are in Italian. Murray's last edition of "Central Italy" contains
clear and excellent general information, and there are several small
local guides--the best of these by Lupatelli--which can be had in the
hotel. No one who really desires to study the town should fail to read
the fascinating books of its best lover, Annibale Mariotti; and the
works of Conestabile and Vermiglioli are invaluable for students. All
these can be had in the public library of the town where there is a
pleasant quiet room in which to study them, and the excessive courtesy
of whose head--Count Vincenzo Ansidei--makes research an easy pleasure
there.
The topography of Perugia is simple: "The entire city," says Mariotti,
"since the very earliest days, was divided into five quarters or
_rioni_, which from the centre, that is to say, the highest point of the
town, and with as gentle an incline as the condition of the ground
allows, stretch out in five different directions like so many sunbeams
across the mountain side. These gates are: _Porta Sole_ to the east,
_Porta Susanna_ to the west (formerly called Trasimene), _Porta S.
Angelo_ (formerly Porta Augusta) to the north, _Porta S. Pietro_ to the
south, and _Porta Eburnea_ to the southwest. Each of these separate
gates bears its own armorial design and colour. Porta Sole is white and
bears a sun with rays; Porta Susanna blue, with a chain; Porta S. Angelo
red, with a branch of arbutus; Porta S. Pietro yellow, with a balance,
and Porta Eburnea green, with a pilgrim's staff."
Owing to the extraordinary situation of the town there are hardly any
level squares or streets. The two considerable flat open spaces on
either side of the Prefettura, the site of the Prefettura itself and of
the hotel Brufani are artificial spaces, the result of the demolition of
Paul III.'s fortress (see chap. vi.). We imagine that many intelligent
persons have passed through the comfortable hotel of Perugia not
realising at all the artificial nature of the ground on which it stands.
The Corso and the Piazza di S. Lorenzo may be said to be the heart of
the town; its pulse beats a little lower down in the Piazza Sopramuro
where fruit and vegetables are sold and where there is a perpetual
market-day.[50] The other big open square is the Piazza d'Armi, on a
lower level of the hill and to the south of the town. There the cattle
fair is held on Tuesdays, and there the beautiful white Umbrian oxen,
with skins that are finer than the cattle of the plain, and the grey
Umbrian pigs, and tall Umbrian men and girls can be seen in all their
glory. Here too is the convent of S. Giuliana with its splendid
cloisters and little Gothic campanile, and here above all do the
soldiers of Perugia practice their bands, their horses, and their bugles
every morning.
There are three things lacking in Perugia, as there are naturally in all
hill-cities, and these are gardens, carriages, and running water. But
all these wants have been delightfully overcome by the inhabitants. As a
matter of fact, there are plenty of hidden gardens, behind the houses in
the town, but in almost every house you will see that iron sockets or
rings have been fastened to the walls below the windows, and in
[Illustration: PIAZZA SOPRAMURO, SHOWING THE PALACE OF THE CAPITANO DEL
POPOLO AND THE BUILDINGS OF THE FIRST UNIVERSITY OF PERUGIA]
these, pots of geraniums, daisies, and carnations are hung and tended
with excessive care. Some of the better palaces or convents have stone
brackets in the shape of shells for window gardens, and even in the dusk
of grim December days the old stone walls seem green and living. The
lack of carriages is really only felt in winter when the inhabitants
seem to fall for the while asleep, leaving the streets to assume their
mediæval character, and to be swept by winter hurricanes; in spring and
summer the place is gay enough; indeed the Corso is a very good specimen
of Umbrian Piccadilly on a fine May evening, and there are plenty of
carriages in the tourist season. But go into any palace of Perugia and
you will find the sedan chairs of our grandfathers ready for instant
use, proving that carriages are quite a modern innovation in the town.
The need of running water is, of course, the most serious point about so
big and prosperous a city, and a running stream to turn a paper mill
would heal more ills than all her pictures and her wide calm view. The
great rushing stream of the Tiber down at the foot of the hill seems
like a sort of solemn mockery to people who have only wells and a little
river from the hill to drink from and to wash their linen in. We have
realized this on winter nights when the Tiber was out in flood in the
moonlight down below our windows, and small drops freezing, one by one,
on Pisano's fountain behind us in the square.
Yet the town is prosperous. Its inhabitants and those of the commune
have increased by some six thousand since the days of its first
prosperity. Commerce, it is true, seems somewhat at a standstill. There
is the commerce of travellers, which is by no means inconsiderable; and
there is the commerce of Mind. This last Perugia has always had since
the days when she grew powerful, and the University of Perugia has
played a constant and important part throughout her annals. It was
founded in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and its management,
like other things in the city, was chiefly in the hands of the people
and their representatives, the _Priori_. Five _Savi_, one from each
_rione_, were told off to regulate its affairs and to elect its
professors. Urban VIII. brought it under the management of the Church,
but this did not in any way alter its first rules and laws. We hear that
"the Emperor Charles IV. bestowed upon the University all those
distinctions which were enjoyed by the most celebrated universities of
the Empire," and Napoleon confirmed these and added much to the
magnificence of Perugia's university. It was during the Napoleonic rule
that the college was transferred from its old quarters in the Piazza
Sopramuro to the vast new buildings at Montemorcino. Her three main
branches of study are jurisprudence, science, and theology. Several of
the popes studied in Perugia. S. Thomas Aquinas lectured here, and many
distinguished men of science and of law passed through their first
schools in the Umbrian hill town. The two great lawyers Baldo Baldeschi
and Bartolo Alfani were students in the University of Perugia, and
Alberico Gentile, who afterwards lectured in Oxford, studied here at the
University. The affairs of war were never allowed to interfere with
those of the mind, and we hear that a guarantee of safe conduct was
given to any scholar who came here from a distance.
The arts of peace, such as the manufacture of wool and silken stuffs,
were known in the middle ages in spite of the want of water (the hand
and foot looms of Perugia are almost prehistoric in their simplicity),
and in 1297 we hear of the magistrates of Perugia sending an embassy
into Lombardy to fetch two friars thence who should teach their
townsfolk the secrets of weaving. This art was zealously kept up for
many years, but finally it fell into decay. A branch of it has lately
been revived by a Milanese lady, and thanks to her efforts we are again
able to buy the strange flame-patterned carpets which we find on the
altars of so many of the older Umbrian churches.
* * * * *
Except in the Corso, life seems very quiet in Perugia. Yet though there
is poverty, there is none of that feeling of decayed splendour, of
arrested magnificence and luxury which we feel in so many cities of
Italy. The Perugians were probably never very luxurious. There are one
or two beautiful old palaces, but they are plain to look at, and the
palaces of the nobles had a bad time of it and were constantly pulled to
bits as their different owners were driven into the country. The town is
a town of a strong people; it is dignified and peaceful. When the wind
is not battering about its roofs and howling through its narrow streets
one becomes aware of an extraordinary silence.
And in that silence the questions rise--one cannot stifle them: Where
are the _Beccherini_ and where are the _Raspanti_? Are the Baglioni
really dead, and the Oddi, where are they? And the Flagellants and the
_Penitenti_--have even their ghosts departed? Will not a pope ride in at
the gates with his nephews and his cardinals and take up peaceful
quarters in the grim Canonica? Will not some warlike Abbot come and
batter down the church towers to build himself a palace? Will no
procession pass us with a banner of Bonfigli, and women wailing that the
plague should be removed?...
The snow falls silently upon the roads in winter. No blood of nobles
stains it. In May all Umbria is green with crops. No _condottiere_
comes to trample down the corn. But high upon her hill-top Perugia
stands as she stood then, and in her silence seems to wait for something
yet to come.
* * * * *
Before closing this chapter we would once again repeat that no one with
a few hours' leisure should forbear to wander round the outer walls of
the town before leaving Perugia. With only one break: that which is
formed by the deep ravine (or _bulagnjo_ in the local dialect) between
Porta Sant Antonio and Porta S. Angelo, one can walk on quite good paths
and roads under the outer walls of the entire city. The Via della
Cuparella is a pleasant lane reached by passing out through Porta
Eburnea. It skirts under the mediæval and Etruscan walls to the west of
the town and re-enters the city again a little below Porta Susanna. This
lane is one of the most sheltered corners in Perugia, and we have
wandered up and down it in the early days of January, and found the
sleepy lizards basking on its banks and yellow aconites in all the
furrows. The trees bud early there; their young green shimmers like a
vision of immortal youth against the grim walls of the mediæval and
Etruscan city up beyond.
Another charming walk is that along the eastern side of the town,
passing out through Porta S. Ercolano and through the Corso away along
the broad high-road to the convent of Monte Luce, which is quite one of
the most fascinating buildings of Perugia, with its front of white and
rosy marble, its court-yard and rose window, and the splendid block of
its nunnery walls covering the crest of the hill behind the church. The
convent was built early in the thirteenth century on the site, some say,
of an Etruscan temple dedicated to the Goddess Feronia, but more
probably in the sacred wood or _lucus_ from which it derived its name.
It was one of the most prosperous convents of the country, and Mariotti
gives a delightful account of a visit paid by the great Farnese Pope,
Paul III., to its Abbess. The Pope, it seems, gave himself the
permission to visit the nuns, who received him, "marvelling," as the
most learned nun of her day relates, "that the Vicar of God on earth
should so far humiliate himself as to visit such vile servants, as we
were." The Pope came into the church and took the seat prepared for him
in the choir, "all of his own accord, without being helped by anybody,
and like a meek and gentle lamb ... and being seated, he said to the
sisters, 'Come everyone of you and kiss my foot.'" Then the Abbess and
the sisters kissed the feet of the Pope. A long conversation and
exchange of compliments followed, and finally at sundown the Pope
departed, "very greatly edified."
[Illustration: CONVENT OF MONTE LUCE]
From Monte Luce one road winds down to the Tiber, passing under the
charming villa of Count Rossi Scotti, and another back into the city,
first through a strange row of wooden booths which are opened on the
feast day of Monte Luce (August 15th), and then on through the walls of
Mommaggiore's fortress and back into the town through Porta S. Antonio.
* * * * *
But it is not possible to describe all the details of a place which,
like all fair things, should be explored to be enjoyed. The discovery of
its hidden lanes, its little wayside villas, and its churches must be
left as it was left to the present writers, who never will forget the
tramps they took in the brown winter twilight, the drives on warm spring
afternoons when honeysuckle scented all the hedges, and the strange
excited feelings which possessed them when they found the hidden wayside
house or chapel, which had no written record to tell them who had built
it, and nothing but its own Perugian charm to endear it to them, and to
give it history.
CHAPTER V
_Palazzo Pubblico, The Fountain, and the Duomo_
In Professor Freeman's small sketch of Perugia he says very truly that
the most striking points of the city--that is to say, of the Mediæval
and Renaissance period--are those which are gathered together in the
_Piazza di San Lorenzo_.
The whole atmosphere of the square is unique and impressive: individual
as are the piazzas of the largest and the smallest towns in Italy which
have battled for their independence throughout the course of centuries.
The buildings have been changed about, burnt, battered and rebuilt, but
the spirit of the middle ages has never really left them. Sitting on the
steps of the Duomo we seem to feel it creep up round our feet telling us
stories of a past which is immortal. It was here that the people of
Perugia fought and judged, preached and repented, loved maybe, and most
certainly hated. It was in this little pulpit above our heads that S.
Bernardino preached, and saw the books of necromancy and the false hair
of the ladies burned; here that the _Podestà_ and the people received
ambassadors with deeds of submission from terrified neighbour towns. On
the spikes of the railing round the fountain one set of nobles stuck the
heads of others whom they hated, whom they slaughtered; and down those
steps of the palazzo opposite, the great procession of the _Priori_
came on days of solemn ceremony, and up through the dark gateway of the
Canonica the Pope and all his cardinals passed in when they arrived from
Rome. Truly the spirit of the past history is not dead. It is painfully
and supremely living. The Piazza di S. Lorenzo on a December night with
windstorms hurrying the sleet across its great grim walls is more
absolutely filled with the _terribilità_ of humanity than anything we
ever realised.
One strange fact to trace in the square is the splendid preservation of
the municipal buildings as compared to the almost ruinous condition of
those of the church. The strife between the people and the papacy is
carved as it were upon the very hearts of the monuments, and whereas the
palace of the people has remained comparatively perfect--a beautiful
finished building which delights the eye--the palace of the popes has
been battered and abused almost to destruction at the hand of man, of
fires and of time. Almost the only lovely detail which still clings to
the face of the cathedral is the small pulpit whence the saint of Siena
preached to the people; and this in itself is a symbolical fact, for it
was the power of a single human _soul_ which, for an instant tamed, if
it could not quell, the passion of the Perugians. The power of the
church, as church, never really mastered them. Paul III. mastered them,
but he did so in the character of a warrior and tyrant.
As far as position goes the cathedral entirely dominates the municipal
palace. It stands so high that in any distant view of the city it seems
to soar above the other buildings. As we have seen before, the Perugians
had but little patience with architectural or æsthetic matters. "They
always preferred Mars to the Muse," says Bonazzi. Some grim and enduring
respect kept their hands off their municipal palace when once it had
been completed to their satisfaction, they
[Illustration: PIAZZA DI S. LORENZO, SEEN FROM UNDER THE ARCHES OF THE
PALAZZO PUBBLICO]
took the precaution of putting a large iron fence round their fountain,
but their cathedral suffered. They were zealous during the time of their
prosperity to have a large and splendid church, but they never found
time to finish or adorn it. They left the brickwork naked, hoping for
some chance fight to furnish them with marbles for it, and in 1385 they
were able to secure those which had been prepared for the cathedral of
Arezzo. But they did not keep them. Pellini gives a weird account of
the bringing of these marbles. "These things being accomplished," he
says, referring to a very inhuman siege and conquest over the
unfortunate Arezzo, "some outward sign of the acknowledged victory was
necessary; so many marble stones were brought back to Perugia with some
paintings upon them which had been formerly in the cathedral of the
city; and the oxen and carts which brought them hither, with all the men
who worked to bring them, were dressed out by our city with red cloth;
but of those said stones, although they were certainly put up outside
the walls of our cathedral, no sign at all remains." A little later
Pellini explains their loss, for the people of Arezzo got back their
marbles. "They started on their journey back to Arezzo," says the
faithful historian, who will acknowledge no possible conquest of his own
city, "and were put up on a part of their church where they may now be
seen, white and red in colour, and very lovely to behold."
Throughout the history of Perugia, in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, we hear of fights and skirmishes in the square, but it was
always the cathedral and not the palace which was turned into a
fortress. In 1489 one of the endless fights between the Baglioni and the
Oddi occurred, and the cathedral became a castle. Guido Baglioni arrived
in hot haste from Spello, and proceeded to turn the Oddi out of Perugia.
"Girolamo della Penna," says Villani, "deserted his brother Agamemnon
and joined the Signori Baglioni, taking with him Silvio del Abate and
others, and, together with the Baglioni, they took possession of S.
Lorenzo, placed artillery there, and fortified the church, its loggia,
and its roof in every way they knew of." The Duomo, on this occasion,
proved such an excellent stronghold, that the Oddi outside were entirely
discomfited, and had to abandon the siege and retire once more to the
country. Another remarkable instance of fighting between the two
pugnacious families is given by Fabretti, which illustrates, moreover,
the slight power possessed by the Pope at that period. "At the end of
October 1488 there was a great fight in the Piazza degli Aratri, and
then the Baglioni collected in the piazza, and an ever-increasing throng
of supporters assembled round them. And on that same day the brother of
the Pope (Innocent VIII.) arrived, and as he passed by the piazza the
people called out, '_Chiesa, chiesa_.' He was accompanied to the steps
of the Palazzo Pubblico by Guido and Grifonetto Baglioni, who hoped that
he might manage to arrange matters. But the _Priori_ looked out of the
windows above them, and seeing the Baglioni in the street below, they
began to throw down large and heavy stones in the hopes of wounding
Guido Baglioni. The hubbub continued with renewed force, and only at
dusk did stillness fall upon the city."
PALAZZO PUBBLICO.
Having glanced thus rapidly over the general historical interest of the
piazza, it may be well to describe the buildings separately, taking the
_Palazzo Pubblico_ first. Anyone who comes to Perugia, even for a single
afternoon, will naturally hurry to this point and spend an hour or two
in the Cambio and Pinacoteca; but if a little time remains he should
wander further through its public corridors and halls and archives, its
council chambers, library, and prisons. All these are gathered together
with a certain indifference to the first lines of architecture in the
shell of the massive old buildings, and by penetrating these mysterious
regions one seems better able to understand the spirit of historical
Perugia. The iron force of the
[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE FIRST PALAZZO DEI PRIORI IN THE VIA DEL
VERZARO]
people's law--that force which alone kept head above the breakers of
foreign wars and civil discord in the past--slumbers, but is not dead,
in the halls where it once reigned. A hum of modern life, a host of
modern busts and portraits now clash with, now mellow, the sombre walls
and passages. At the other end of the Corso there is a grand new
Prefettura, where the Prefect of all Umbria manages Umbrian matters,
but the pulse of the old city beats on in its old veins. The _Priori_,
with their golden chains and crimson gowns, have vanished, but the men
and women of the land are pretty much the same. They wear big collars of
foxes' fur on their long winter cloaks, just as they did in mediæval
times, and they bring their claims of business into their first house of
business, they swarm and hum within the corridors, and trample up and
down the wide stone staircase with dignified determination stamped upon
their features. In the rooms to which they go the clerks sit writing
steadily amidst their piles of archives and of blue-books. Few probably
of all these people know, and fewer care, about the Peruginos and
Bonfiglis in the rooms above; for the natural man or woman desires to
pray before his saints and not to pay to stare at them.
We hear that the present palace was finished in the middle of the
fourteenth century. Long before that date there had been a public hall
where the rulers of the city met to discuss and settle its affairs.[51]
But this building was comparatively small and cramped, and the new
meeting-house was undertaken with superb disregard to expense. A rough
calculation from the many bills shows us that upwards of 14,041 _libre_
was spent on the building of it, but it took nearly one hundred and
thirty years to build, and the fact that it was finished at different
periods--a bit being added at intervals down the Corso--may account for
the waving and irregular line of the east front, which is one of its
most marked features.
The first architects employed were natives of Perugia: Fra Bevignate and
Messers Giacomo di Servadio and Giovanello di Benvenuto. The original
plan of the building was probably a perfect square, reaching from its
present north front down to where the great door now stands. One should
examine the building from the back in order to understand it fully. At
one time we hear that Lombard workmen were called in to assist in the
"very heavy labour," which, perhaps, gives a certain Lombard look to
parts of the brickwork round the windows.
The citizens took a vast interest in the erection of their public
palace, and allowed many private houses and even churches to be pulled
down in order to make room for it. As for the decoration of the
cathedral, so also for that of the palace, a neighbouring town was
ransacked to furnish ornaments, and the unhappy Bettona was stripped of
marbles to supply the magnificent _Priori_ with their pillars and their
friezes. Different portions of the huge edifice were given to the
principal city guilds to decorate, and it was probably a spirit of
emulation in these societies which produced the costly beauties of the
separate parts. The chapel was decorated by the Merchants' Guild, and
also the principal door, which was dedicated to St Louis of Toulouse. It
is a beautiful piece of work, rich and lovely in its smallest detail,
and carved in the grey stone called _pietra serena_, which always looks
a little cold and dusty, like the fur on a grey mole's back, but which
lends itself to a certain attractive style of polished carving peculiar
to old doorways in Perugia.[52] Through it one passes into an immense
hall, from which a staircase leads into the rooms of the palace above.
In former times there were no steps, and persons of distinction and of
wealth rode up on horseback to the council chambers.
A splendid open-air staircase leads up to the north entrance of the
palace, which is, perhaps, the most impressive architectural point in
all Perugia. Some years ago this fine outer staircase was pulled down;
but it has been rebuilt with extreme care and taste, and probably
exactly on the original lines. One can fancy the great procession of the
_Podestà_ and the _Priori_ proceeding up and down these steps on days of
solemn ceremony. "Four mace-bearers went before them," we are told,
"bearing in their hands a silver staff richly covered with beautifully
wrought figures, with the griffin on the top in enamelled relief.
Without these mace-bearers it was not lawful for magistrates to go out."
Each of the ten _Priori_ wore round his neck "a heavy golden chain, the
emblem of his office; and on solemn occasions the magistrate was
preceded by six trumpeters to herald his approach with silver trumpets,
which same were about four metres in length, beautifully enamelled, and
with streamers of red satin on which the white griffin of the city was
depicted."
The principal door, from which the _Priori_ probably emerged, is guarded
by great brazen beasts: a griffin and a lion, emblems of the city and
the Guelphs. These creatures are very typical creations from the brain
of some Perugian artist, and among the most impressive objects of their
sort in Italy. They were originally made for a fountain in the square by
a certain Maestro Ugolino, who received the modest sum of ten pounds for
making them. In 1308 the fountain was destroyed, and a little later they
were hoisted up to their present position. Long chains and keys hung
from their claws in early days. "At the feet of these beasts," says
Rossi, "the bars and keys of the doors of Assisi were hung as glorious
trophies in 1321; and in 1358 the keys of the Justice Hall of Siena. The
undisciplined militia which entered Perugia on the 3rd August 1799
pulled them down secretly, ('in the silence of the night' Mariotti
says,) and thus took from the citizens of the present day the
satisfaction of restoring to their rightful owners these disgraceful
mementos of patriarchal warfare with cities, who to-day are their best
friends. The fragments which remain have not the slightest historical
interest; they are merely the bars from which the above-mentioned
articles once hung."
The door with the brazen beasts above it leads straight into the _Sala
dei Notari_--a splendid vaulted hall, its ceiling covered with frescoes,
surrounded by high wooden stalls and steps of walnut. This big hall was
given over to the lawyers of Perugia in 1583. They bought it, and their
Collegio down below, from the city for the sum of 1000 _scudi_; and they
at once decorated their fine new quarters, and settled comfortably into
them, doing all their business there till early in the century. By the
code of Napoleon they were, however, deprived of their privileges, and
during the imperial French rule the hall was used as a criminal court.
The lawyers seem to have been utterly unhinged in their arrangements.
They never returned to the pleasant haunts from which the Emperor ousted
them, and the big hall is now used for public concerts and lectures.
The room which corresponds with this one on the upper storey is now the
Public Library, with a magnificent collection of over 50,000 volumes,
some valuable manuscripts and beautiful painted missals.
Leaving the _Sala dei Notari_ one crosses the main staircase of the
palace, and passes into the living heart of the building, into a network
of separate rooms and offices which it is not necessary to describe at
length. The _Sala del Consiglio Comunitativo_, or _d'Udienza_, is
beautifully decorated with crimson damask, and delicate arabesques, and
has a fine open fire-place carved in _pietra serena_. Adone Doni's
picture of Julius III. (see page 181) is hung in this room, and from it
one can gain a pretty accurate knowledge of what the _Priori_ and the
potentates of Perugia looked like in their gala clothes. In the _Sala
degli Archivi_ there is a fresco of Parnassus by Baroccio. The colour is
very fresh still, and the nymphs seem hopelessly out of place above the
piles of dusty archives.
There is a curious history connected with the _Sala del
Malconsiglio_--that room with the exquisite fresco by Fiorenzo di
Lorenzo over its main entrance door.[53] It was here that the celebrated
debate took place concerning the English prisoners (Hawkwood's men) whom
the Perugians succeeded in capturing during the great fight down by the
Tiber. The prisoners concocted a letter as they lay in their cells, and
in the most pathetic terms they appealed to their capturers; "We too are
Christians," they urged, "but we die of thirst. Have mercy upon us, have
mercy on your poor captives,
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