to be admitted to the freedom of the city of Perugia; which
request the masters of the guilds, "taking into consideration the
industry, the mode of life and the moral character" of the petitioner,
were pleased to grant, on the condition that he, together with two other
persons admitted to citizenship at the same time, should make a present
to the corporation of a silver dish and forty pounds' weight of copper
money, and, further, that he should give the masters and treasurers of
his own guild a dinner.

The notices which Professor Rossi has collected from the various
collections of archives explored by him show in a remarkable manner how
much the best patron of art and artists in those days was the Church.
By far the greatest number of the contracts cited are made by
ecclesiastics, either monks or collegiate bodies of canons or the like,
for the ornamentation of their churches and sacristies. The next best
patrons are the different trade-guilds of the cities. Each of these had
its place of meeting for the _priori_--masters or wardens, as we should
say, of the company--and many of them a contiguous chapel. The sort of
furniture needed for these places was generally a range of seats running
round the principal room, a back of wainscoting behind them, a kind of
pulpit for those who addressed the meeting, a raised and prominent seat
for the "consuls" of the guild, and a large table or writing-desk for
the transaction of business. All this, as will be readily perceived,
afforded fine opportunities for the display of rich carvings and
intarsia; and there was much rivalry between the guilds in the splendor
and adornment of their places of meeting. Some of these works still
remain intact, as in the case of the meeting-room and chapel of the
company of exchange-brokers, which is celebrated wherever art is valued
for the magnificent frescoes by Perugino which adorn the upper part of
the walls above the wood-work. I think, however, that the Church was
more liberal and magnificent in her orders. I have seen much fine
wood-work in the different guild-halls and town-halls in various cities
of Italy, but in no lay building, not even in wealthy and magnificent
Venice itself, with all the splendor of its ducal palace and its Scuole,
have I ever seen anything of the kind at all comparable to the wood-work
in the choirs of the monastery of St. Peter at Perugia and of the
cathedral at Siena. There is in the cathedral of Bergamo some intarsi