who overspread Italy in the fourteenth
century, and to whose devotion were due the _Laude_, or
popular hymns of the religious confraternities, which in
course of time produced the _Sacre Rappresentazioni_ of
fifteenth-century Florentine literature. Umbria, and
especially Perugia and Assisi, seems to have been
inventive in piety between 1200 and 1400.

Therefore the painter who had made his reputation by placing devout
young faces upon twisted necks, with a back-ground of limpid
twilight and calm landscape, was forced by the fervour of his
patrons, and his own desire for money, to perpetuate pious
prettinesses long after he had ceased to feel them. It is just this
widespread popularity of a master unrivalled in one line of
devotional sentimentalism which makes the contrast between Perugino
and the Baglioni family so striking.

The Baglioni first came into notice during the wars they carried on
with the Oddi of Perugia in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries.[1] This was one of those duels to the death, like that of
the Visconti with the Torrensi of Milan, on which the fate of so
many Italian cities in the middle ages hung. The nobles fought; the
townsfolk assisted like a Greek chorus, sharing the passions of the
actors, but contributing little to the catastrophe. The piazza was
the theatre on which the tragedy was played. In this contest the
Baglioni proved the stronger, and began to sway the state of Perugia
after the irregular fashion of Italian despots. They had no legal
right over the city, no hereditary magistracy, no title of princely
authority.[2] The Church was reckoned the supreme administrator of
the Perugian commonwealth. But in reality no man could set foot on
the Umbrian plain without permission from the Baglioni. They elected
the officers of state. The lives and goods of the citizens were at
their discretion. When a Papal legate showed his face, they made the
town too hot to hold him. One of Innocent VIII.'s nephews had been
murdered by them.[3] Another cardinal had shut himself up in a box,
and sneaked on mule-back like a bale of merchandise through the
gates to escape their fury. It was in vain that from time to time
the people rose against them, massacring Pandolfo Baglioni on the
public square in 1393, and joining with Ridolfo and Braccio of the
dominant house to assassinate another Pandolfo with his son Niccolo
in 1460. The more they were cut down, the more they flourished.