ption) "was
uncovered, it was freely blamed by all the younger craftsmen, and, in
particular, because Pietro had made use of those figures which had
already appeared in his other works; and his friends replied that it
was not that his powers had failed, but that he had acted so either
from greed of money or from haste. To whom Pietro answered: 'I have
put into this work the figures praised before by you, and with which
you were infinitely pleased. If now they displease you and are not
praised, what can I do to help it?' But these men continued to assail
him with sonnets and public insults. Whence he, already old, left
Florence, and returned to Perugia." There is something pathetic in the
old man's reply, and it must have cost him a heart-pang to thus turn
his back on Florence. He had loved the city, had gained there his
first inspiration in art, his first successes, had wedded there,
bought a house and property, and purchased in this noble Church of the
SS. Annunziata a burial-place for himself and his descendants. But he
never returned. His name disappears from the rolls of the painters'
guild in Florence, and in 1506 appears in that of Perugia. Umbria
welcomed back her great master with reverent appreciation. That
divided impulse of his life was ended, and from henceforth he was
all her own.

[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH TWO MALE SAINTS

(In the National Gallery, London)

This fine painting, very individual in treatment, was painted by
Pietro in 1507 for the executors of Giovanni Schiavone, a
master-carpenter of Perugia.

In 1822 Baron delle Penna, by whose family it had been inherited,
removed the painting to his palace at Perugia, and thence it passed to
the London Gallery in 1879.]

Always a good man of business, Perugino's first step on reaching
Perugia was to collect the debts still due to him. From the
authorities of Citta della Pieve he demanded the balance (March of
1507) of 25 florins, which was liquidated by the conveyance of a
house, from Panicale 11 florins, and for his work in the Cambio he
drew 350 ducats. Then the commissions began to come in again, and an
altar-piece of this very time (1507), representing Madonna between SS.
Jerome and Francis, has recently come to the London National Gallery
from the Palazzo Penna at Perugia, and is a work of charm and great
merit. It had been ordered in 1507 by the executors of Giovanni
Schiavone, a master-carpenter of Perugia, to be set o