Ara Coeli, he painted the chapel of San Bernardino,[1] and’ in Santa Maria del Popolo, where, as we have already said, he painted two chapels ; he likewise executed figures of the four Doctors of the Church,[2] on the ceiling of the principal chapel.[3]
When Pinturicchio had attained the age of fifty-nine, he received a commission to paint a picture of the Birth of the Virgin for San Francesco, in Siena[4], and having commenced the work, a room was appropriated to his use by the monks, which was given up to him, as he desired it should be, entirely empty and denuded of every thing, a massive old chest alone excepted; this they left in its place, finding it too heavy for removal. But Pinturicchio, like a strange self-willed man as he was, made so much clamour, and repeated his outcries so often, that the monks set themselves at last, in very des¬ peration, to carry the chest away. Now in dragging it forth, such was their good fortune, that one of the sides was broken, when a sum of 500 ducats in gold was brought to light : this discovery caused Pinturicchio so much vexation, and he took the good fortune of those poor friars so much to heart, that he could think of nothing else, and so grievously did this oppress him, that not being able to get it out of his thoughts, he finally died of vexation.[5] His paintings were executed about the year 1513.[6]
- ↑ Titi, Nuovo Studij, &c. p. 116, ascribes this picture to Francesco Francia, but this opinion is contrary to that of most writers.— See among others, Rumohr, ut supra, who considers it to be one of Pinturicchio’s most successful works.
- ↑ The Latin Doctors that is, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory.
- ↑ These works are still in existence. In addition to the Doctors, there are the four Sybils, and the four Evangelists, with a Coronation of the Virgin in the centre.
- ↑ This picture perished in the fire which happened on the 23rd August, 16 b‘ 5. — Masselli.
- ↑ The true cause of Pinturicchio’s death is declared by a writer of his own day, Sigismondo Tizio, an (unedited)-historian of Siena, to have been the misconduct of his wife, who is even said to have permitted him to remain unattended in his last illness, until he died of want. This, Tizio, who was a contemporary of Pinturicchio as we have said, was told, as he affirms, by certain women, who were neighbours of the awful wife in question.
- ↑ Della Valle, in his Storia del Duomo dd Orvieto, relates that Pinturicchio was invited to Orvieto to complete a picture left unfinished by Fra
