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Pinturicchio (Perugia, 1454–1513), Italy|Italian
painter, whose full name was Bernardino di Betti.

The son of a citizen of Perugia, Benedetto or
Betto di Blagio, he was one of a very important
group who inherited the artistic traditions and
developed the style of the older Perugian
painters, such as Benedetto Bonfigli|Bonfigli and
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. According to Giorgio
Vasari|Vasari he was a pupil of Pietro
Perugino|Perugino, and so in one sense no doubt he
was, but rather as a paid assistant than as an
apprentice.

The strong similarity both in design and methods
of execution which runs through the works of this
later Perugian school is very striking; paintings
by Perugino, Pinturicchio, Lo Spagna and Raphael
(in his first manner) may often be mistaken one
for the other. In most cases, especially in the
execution of large frescoes, pupils and assistants
had a large share in the work, either in enlarging
the master's sketch to the full-sized cartoon, in
transferring the cartoon to the wall, or in
painting backgrounds, drapery and other
accessories.

After assisting Perugino in the execution of his
frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, Pinturicchio was
employed by various members of the Della Rovere
family and others to decorate a whole series of
chapels in the church of S. Maria del Popolo in
Rome, where he appears to have worked from 1484,
or earlier, to 1492 with little interruption. The
earliest of these is an altarpiece of the
Adoration of the Shepherds, in the first chapel
(from the west) on the south, built by Cardinal
Domenico della Rovere; a portrait of the cardinal
is introduced as the foremost of the kneeling
shepherds. In the lunettes under the vault
Pinturicchio painted small scenes from the life of
Jerome|St Jerome.

The frescoes which he painted in the next chapel,
that built by Cardinal Innocenzo Cibo, were
destroyed in 1700, when the chapel was rebuilt by
Cardinal Alderano Cibo. The third chapel on the
south is that of Giov. della Rovere, duke of Sora,
nephew of Pope Sixtus IV|Sixtus IV, and brother of
Giuliano, who was afterwards Pope Julius II. This
contains a fine altarpiece of the Madonna
enthroned between Four Saints, and on the east
side a very nobly composed fresco of the
Assumption of the Virgin. The vault and its
lunettes are richly decorated with small pictures
of the life of the Virgin, surrounded by graceful
arabesques; and the dado is covered with
monochrome paintings of scenes from the lives of
saints, medallions with prophets, and very
graceful and powerfully drawn female figures in
full length in which the influence of Luca
Signorelli|Signorelli may be traced.

In the fourth chapel Pinturicchio painted the Four
Latin Doctors in the lunettes of the vault. Most
of these frescoes are considerably injured by
damp, but happily have suffered little from
restoration; the heads are painted with much
minuteness of finish, and the whole of the
pictures depend very largely for their effect on
the final touchings a secco. The last paintings
completed by Pinturicchio in this church were the
frescoes on the vault over the retro-choir, a very
rich and well-designed piece of decorative work,
with main lines arranged to suit their
surroundings in a very skilful way. In the centre
is an octagonal panel of the coronation oi the
Virgin, and round it medallions of the Four
Evangeliststhe spaces between them being filled up
by reclining figures of the Four Sibyls. On each
pendentive is a figure of one of the Four Doctors
enthroned under a niched canopy. The bands which
separate these pictures have elaborate arabesques
on a golc ground, and the whole is painted with
broad and effective touches, very telling when
seen (as is necessarily the case) from a
considerable distance below. No finer specimen of
the decora-ion of a simple quadripartite vault can
anywhere be seen.

In 1492 Pinturicchio was summoned to Orvieto,
where he painted two Prophets and two of the
Doctors in the duomo. In the following year he
returned to Rome, and was employed by Pope
Alexander VI (Borgia) to decorate a suite of six
rooms in the Vatican, which Alexander had just
built. These rooms, called after their founder the
Appartamenti Borgia, now form part of the Vatican
library, and five of them still retain the fine
series of frescoes with which they were so
skilfully decorated Pinturicchio.

The upper part of the walls and vaults, not only
covered with painting, but further enriched with
delicate stucco work in relief, are a masterpiece
of decorative design applied according to the
truest principles of mural ornamenta much better
model for imitation in that respect than the more
celebrated Stanze of Raphael immediately over the
Borgia rooms. The main subjects are:
#the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Magi, and the
Resurrection
#Scenes from the lives of St Catherine, St Antony
and other saints
#allegorical figures of music, arithmetic and the
like
#four figures in half length, with rich arabesques
#figures of the planets, the occupations of the
various months, and other subjects
The sixth room was repainted by Perino del Vaga.

Though not without interruption, Pinturicchio,
assisted by his pupils, worked in these rooms from
1492 till 1498, when they were completed. His
other chief frescoes in Rome, still existing in a
very genuine state, are those in the Cappella
Bufalini at the south-west of S Maria in Ara
Coeli, probably executed from 1497 to 1500. These
are well-designed compositions, noble in
conception, and finished with much care and
refinement. On the altar wall is a grand painting
of St Bernardino of Siena between two other
saints, crowned by angels; in the upper part is a
figure of Christ in a mandorla, surrounded by
angel musicians; on the left wall is a large
fresco of the miracles done by the corpse of St
Bernardino, very rich in colour, and full of very
carefully painted heads, some being portraits of
members of the Bufalini family, for whom these
frescoes were executed.

One group of three females, the central figure
with a child at her breast, is of especial beauty,
recalling the grace of Raphael's second manner.
The composition of the main group round the
saint's corpse appears to have been suggested by
Giotto's painting of St Francis on his bier in
Santa Croce at Florence. On the vault are four
noble figures of the Evangelists, usually
attributed to Luca Signorelli, but certainly, like
the rest of the frescoes in this chapel, by the
hand of Pinturicchio. On the vault of the sacristy
of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Pinturicchio painted
the Almighty surrounded by the Evangelists. During
a visit to Orvieto in 1496 Pinturicchio painted
two more figures of the Latin Doctors in the choir
of the duomo: now, like the rest of his work at
Orvieto, almost destroyed. For these he received
fifty gold ducats. In Umbria, his masterpiece is
the Baglioni Chapel in the church of S. Maria
Maggiore in Spello.

Among his panel pictures the following are the
most important. An altarpiece for S. Maria de'
Fossi at Perugia, painted in 1496-1498, now moved
to the picture gallery, is a Madonna enthroned
among Saints, graceful and sweet in expression,
and very minutely painted; the wings of the
retable have standing figures of Augustine of
Hippo|St Augustine and St Jerome; and the preddla
has paintings in miniature of the Annunciation and
the Evangelists. Another fine altarpiece, similar
in delicacy of detail, and probably painted about
the same time, is that in the cathedral of San
Severino — the Madonna enthroned looks down
towards the kneeling donor. The angels at the
sides in beauty of face and expression recall the
manner of Lorenzo di Credi or Da Vinci.

The Vatican picture gallery has the largest of
Pinturicchio's panels — the Coronation of
the Virgin, with the apostles and other saints
below. Several well-executed portraits occur among
the kneeling saints. The Virgin, who kneels at
Christ's feet to receive her crown, is a figure of
great tenderness and beauty, and the lower group
is composed with great skill and grace in
arrangement. Other important panel paintings by
Pinturicchio exist: see Guattani, Quadri nell'
appart. Borgia (Rome, 1820).
----
1911