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Much as Signor Moretti has of Peruginesque in the treatment of his art, his figures, especially his male figures, are free from the faults that have been signalized. There is a robust simplicity about them that is far removed from affectation of any kind.
There were long-haired lads who fancied the sublime lay in the Peruginesque manner, and depicted saintly personages with crisp draperies, crude colours, and haloes of gold-leaf.
The composition, drawing and disposition of this design, which I had subsequently an opportunity of examining in the cartoon, is truly masterly. The figure of the Virgin, with long flowing locks of the richest and most sunny auburn, is of very great beauty and quite Peruginesque in style and conception.
Though he absorbed all that was excellent in the Peruginesque style, he avoided its affectations, and seemed to take departure for a higher flight from the most exquisite among his teacher's early paintings. Later on, while still a lad, he escaped from Umbrian conventionality by learning all that was valuable in the art of Masaccio and Fra Bartolommeo.
On the nave piers are paintings, most of them of little value. A S. Jerome and S. John the Baptist show decorative feeling in the landscape and its combination with the figure; and on the second pier on each side is a row of nine saints and angels, small figures as if from a predella, which show a combination of Peruginesque and Florentine design and colour.
The early paintings of this period betray, as might be expected, many reminiscences of the Peruginesque school, both in conception and execution; the later ones follow in all essential respects the general style of the Florentines. One of the earliest is the Virgin in the Meadow, in the Belvedere Gallery at Vienna.
There is something almost German in the domestic simplicity with which Signorelli has conceived the scene. The woman who waits on the right is Peruginesque in type and attitude, although with the robust physique that belongs to Signorelli. The fresco is much repainted especially in the roof.
The Virgin and Magdalen are very purely conceived figures; the idea of the angels gathering the blood falling from the wounded hands of the crucified Saviour is very tender; there is a great brightness of colouring, and a greenish landscape almost Peruginesque in feeling. Some of his pupils worked with him at the Certosa, and nearly brought their master into trouble.
In the next year we find him employed on several large works in Perugia; these show for the first time the influence of Florentine art in the purity, fullness, and intelligent treatment of form; at the same time many of the motives of the Peruginesque school are still apparent.
The Virgin sits enthroned between four saints, with a very Peruginesque angel on either side, and seated below, at the foot of her throne, are two Fathers of the Church, in one of whom we have repeated the burly bishop with wide-spread knees and fine sweeping drapery of the Loreto cupola, and which occurs later in the Florence Academy altar-piece.
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