There is something capricious or else enigmatical in the mode of
presenting many of them--the dress, attitude and general appearance
often suggest a very different person from the one intended--but the
grace and loveliness of some, the dignity and elevation of others, the
expression of wisdom in this face, of celestial courage in that, the
calm and purity and beauty of all, give them an indescribable charm
and potency. At the end of the room facing the door are the "Nativity"
and "Transfiguration," the latter, infinitely beautiful and religious,
full of quiet concentrated feeling. We were none of us critics: none
of us had got beyond the stage when the sentiment of a work of art is
what most affects our enjoyment of it; and we all confessed how much
more impressive to us was this Transfiguration, with its three quiet
spectators, than the world-famous one at the Vatican. Although
there are masterpieces of Perugino's in nearly every great European
collection, I cannot but think one must go to Perugia to appreciate
fully the limpid clearness, the pensive, tranquil suavity, which
reigns throughout his pictures in the countenances, the landscape, the
atmosphere.
[Illustration: TODI.]
We found it hard to rob Perugia even of a day for a pilgrimage to the
tomb of Saint Francis at Assisi, yet could not leave the neighborhood
without making it. We took the morning-train for the little excursion,
meaning to drive back, and crossed the Tiber for the first time on the
downward journey at Ponte San Giovanni.
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