S. Domenico at Fiesole having been
completed in the year previous. The frescoes in the Capella di S.
Brizio within Orvieto Cathedral had been left unfinished through the
death of Fra Angelico, and our Perugino, as a master "whose fame had
been spread throughout Italy," was now requested to examine the chapel
and tender for the completion of its decoration. He did so, but his
price was a high one--1500 ducats and all materials to be found
him--and we shall trace later how the negotiations, protracted for
several years, came eventually to nothing.

For the moment Florence attracted him, for here, in January of 1491,
under the presidency of Lorenzo de' Medici, called the Magnificent,
the foremost artists of the day were gathered to consider the
decoration of the facade of the Florentine Duomo; and here Perugino
was present, beside such masters as Domenico Ghirlandajo, Cosimo
Rosselli, Andrea della Robbia, Botticelli, Baldovinetti, Pollajuolo--a
long list of names now world-famed in the story of art. From Florence,
in March of this same year, our master made his way to Perugia, where
he drew the balance of his pay for the Sistine frescoes; and then,
prudently avoiding Orvieto, went on south to Rome, where we have seen
that Pinturicchio had now established himself, together with the
Florentine Filippino Lippi, and had found many commissions.

But Perugino soon found a patron in the Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere, later to become famous in history as Pope Julius II.; and this
powerful prelate protected our artist from the importunities of the
Orvietans, who were pressing him to fulfil his contract, and
threatening, if he delayed longer, to appoint another artist in his
place. Cardinal Giuliano, the imperious patron later of Michelangelo,
took the matter with a characteristically high hand. "We laboured
under the impression"--thus he writes to the Council of Orvieto--"that
you were to be compliant, as best suits the love we have ever borne to
your community. And so we now again exhort and pray that you do
reserve the place which is his due to Maestro Pietro, and refrain from
molesting him...."

The fact was that the great prelate wanted Pietro for a time for
himself, and to this time (1491) belongs the lovely altar-piece,
formerly in the Cardinal's Palace, and now in the Villa Albani at
Rome. All our master's devotional feeling, his refinement and beauty
of type, his wealth of golden colour, is found already in this
wonder