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She straightened herself on her chair. "How do you know the name of the church?" Paul smiled and looked round the walls, and reflected for a moment. "Yes," said he in answer to his own questioning, "I think I can tell you where all these pictures are, though I've never seen them, except one. The two angels by Melozzo da Forli are in St. Peter's at Rome.
There was no Giotto, no Duccio even, in Umbria. Painting for its own sake, or for the sake of beauty or life, never seems to have taken root in that mystical soil; it is ever with a message of the Church that she comes to us, very simply and sweetly for the most part, it is true, but except in the work of Piero della Francesca, who was not really an Umbrian at all, and in that of his pupil Melozzo da Forli, the work of the school is sentimental and illustrative, passionately beautiful for a moment with Gentile da Fabriano; clairvoyant almost in the best work of Perugino; most beloved, though maybe not most lovely, in the marvellous work of Raphael, who, Umbrian though he be, is really a Roman painter, full of the thoughts of a world he had made his own.
Melozzo da Forli and Giovanni Santi Raphael's father were there, and there the early youth of Raphael was spent; Jan van Eyck and Justus of Ghent, the great Flemish painters, were also there, and the palace was adorned with many monuments to their skill.
Melozzo has here a very charming Annunciation in two panels, the fascination of which I cannot describe. That they are fascinating there is, however, no doubt. We have symbolical figures by him in our National Gallery again hanging next to Piero della Francesca but they are not the equal of these in charm, although very charming.
It is portrayed on a wall oh, a grand portrayal, but without the subject, flutt!".... and he made a hissing sound with his lips, "while Pier della Francesca, Carnevale, Melozzo,".... he paused to find a word which would express the very complicated thought in his head, and he concluded: "That is painting."
Against the flat walls, under the inquisition of the crudest daylight, the fragments of Melozzo da Forli's masterpiece are masterpieces still; the angelic faces, imprisoned in a place not theirs, reflect the sadness of art's captivity; and the irretrievable destruction of an inimitable past excites the pity and resentment of thoughtful men.
It is portrayed on a wall oh, a grand portrayal, but without the subject, flutt!".... and he made a hissing sound with his lips, "while Pier della Francesca, Carnevale, Melozzo,".... he paused to find a word which would express the very complicated thought in his head, and he concluded: "That is painting."
About the year 1472, Melozzo painted his famous fresco of the Ascension in the great chapel of the Santi Apostoli at Rome. Vasari says of this work, "the figure of Christ is so admirably foreshortened, as to appear to pierce the vault; and in the same manner, the Angels are seen sweeping through the fields of air in different directions."
It is rather in the beautiful work of Piero della Francesca, and of Signorelli, in the rare and lovely work of Melozzo da Forli, in the sweet and holy work of Perugino, the perfect work of Raphael, that Umbria is represented in the Uffizi, than in the mutilated altar-piece of Gentile da Fabriano.
Pliny speaks expressly of its having been practised by Parrhasius and Pausias. Many writers erroneously attribute the invention to Correggio; but Lanzi says, "it was discovered and enlarged by Melozzo da Forli, improved by Andrea Mantegna and his school, and perfected by Correggio and others."
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