The important influence of Pietro del Borgo upon Umbrian art is
confirmed by Vasari, in naming among his scholars Perugino and
Signorelli, the latter of whom worked at Urbino in 1484, and again,
ten years later. But were our information as to his pupils more
ample, we might probably find among them Melozzo da Forlì, to whom,
and to other names connected with the duchy we shall return in our
thirty-first chapter. Prominently among its painters, Lanzi has
enumerated Bartolomeo Corradi, who became a predicant friar by the
title of FRA CARNEVALE. Nothing is known of this talented
limner beyond the fact that he combined his art with the duties of
parish priest, at Castel Cavellino, and died soon after 1488. His
best known work was executed for the great altar of S. Bernardino,
near Urbino, as an _ex voto_ commemoration of Federigo's piety on
the birth of his son in 1472. In it the Duke's portrait, and those
of several of his children, are said to be introduced. Indeed, there
are not wanting old authorities who regard the Madonna and Child as
likenesses of Countess Battista and her infant Guidobaldo. I receive
with caution a conjecture which, repugnant to the ideas of Umbrian
art at that period, would fasten a charge of profane naturalism upon
one whom I should gladly consider as a purely Christian painter.
Pungeleoni ascribes to him a small devotional picture preserved in
the church of the Zoccolantines at Sinigaglia, in which two accessory
figures probably represent the Prefect Giovanni della Rovere and his
wife, the sister of Duke Guidobaldo I.; but their marriage only took
place about the supposed time of this painter's death; and, at all
events, had the Abbé ever seen it, he could not have mistaken it for
a sketch of the altar-piece of S. Bernardino. The latter remains in
the Brera, at Milan, among the unrestored French plunder; and I have
sought in vain for other identified works of Carnevale in the duchy,
although inclined to attribute to him more than one fine but nameless
altar-picture which I have found there.[155]
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