Already he may have been confused in Umbria with the very inferior
master, Bernardino Mariotto of Perugia, who lived for many years at San
Severino, where he had a school in the monastery of the old town. His
paintings have often been assigned to his contemporary, and this is
very likely the reason that the latter always signs and calls himself
Pintoricchio. While he endeavoured to guard against being credited with
works he had not produced, he has been robbed of those really due to
him. It is strange indeed that for several centuries the part he took in
such a great work as the Sixtine Chapel should have been ignored, for it
was the success of these frescoes which sufficed to establish his fame
in Rome, and for some years after this we find him in full employment
there. The chapel was completed in 1485, but Pintoricchio's part was
probably finished earlier, and it is at this time that most critics
concur in placing his work in the church of Ara Cœli. He had commended
himself to the patronage and friendship of Domenico della Rovere,
brother of Pope Sixtus, and was a guest at his house in the Palazzo di
SS. Apostoli, where he painted a decoration, and he was also employed at
this time in the Palazzo Colonna. In the two following years,
Pintoricchio was employed in the Belvedere of the Vatican by Pope
Innocent VIII. He painted there the series of pictures of towns owning
the papal sway, which Taja mentions as existing, though in a much
injured condition, in 1750, and which was repainted under Pius VII.[5]
In the years immediately following he was decorating the chapels in
Santa Maria del Popolo, doing much with his own hand, but already
employing assistants and superintending their share.
[5] Vasari, iii. p. 498, note "Milanesi."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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