[222] “Fu Pietro persona di assai poca religione, e non se gli pote mai far credere l’immortalita dell’ anima:  anzi, con parole, accomodate al suo cervello di porfido, ostinatissimamente ricuso ogni buona vita.  Aveva ogni sua speranza ne’ beni della fortuna, e per danari arebbe fatto ogni male contratto.”  Vasari, vol. vi. p. 50.  The local tradition alluded to above relates to the difficulties raised by the Church against the Christian burial of Perugino:  but if he died of plague, as it is believed (see C. and C., vol. iii. p. 244), these difficulties were probably caused by panic rather than belief in his impiety.  For Gasparo Celio’s note on Perugino’s refusal to confess upon his death-bed, saying that he preferred to see how an impenitent soul would fare in the other world, the reader may consult Rio’s L’Art Chretien, vol. ii. p. 269.  The record of Perugino’s arming himself in Dec. 1486, together with a notorious assassin, Aulista di Angelo of Perugia, in order to waylay and beat a private enemy of his near S. Pietro Maggiore at Florence is quoted by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii. p. 183.

[223] “Guadagno molte ricchezze; e in Fiorenza muro e compro case; ed in Perugia ed a Castello della Pieve acquisto molti beni stahili.”  Vasari, vol. vi. p. 50.

[224] “Goffo nell arte.”  See Vasari, vol. vi. p. 46.  See too above, p. 196.

[225] I select these for comment rather than the frescoes at Spello, beautiful as these are, because they have more interest in relation to the style of the Renaissance.

[226] The “Assumption” in S. Frediano at Lucca should also be mentioned as one of Francia’s masterpieces.

[227] His father was a muleteer of Suffignano, who settled at Florence, in a house and garden near the gate of S. Piero Gattolino.  He was born in 1475, and he died in 1517.

[228] In S. Domenico at Prato in 1500.  He afterwards resided in S. Marco at Florence.

[229] May 23, 1498.

[230] In addition to the pictures mentioned above, I may call attention to the adoring figure of S. Catherine of Siena, in three large paintings—­now severally in the Pitti, at Lucca, and in the Louvre.

[231] In the Uffizzi.  As a composition, it is the Frate’s masterpiece.

[232] See Vol.  I., Age of the Despots, p. 487, for this consequence of the sack of Prato.

[233] L’Art Chretien, vol. ii. p. 515.

[234] Two of our best portraits of Savonarola, the earlier inscribed “Hieronymi Ferrariensis a Deo Missi Prophetae Effigies,” the later treated to represent S. Peter Martyr, are from the hand of Fra Bartolommeo.  See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii. p. 433.

[235] See below, chapter vii.

[236] This sonnet I have translated into English with such closeness to the original words as I found possible:—­