Citta delle Pieve

Citta Delle Pieve – 29 June 2017
This is about an hour and 20 minute drive via Perugia. You end up quite close to Chiusi (see elsewhere in this blog) so if you want to combine the trip to Citta Delle Pieve with another destination that is a good plan.
Parking is pretty easy. I found a free car park outside the city walls and it was only a 10 minute walk into the heart of the old town. I passed Oratorio Santa Maria Dei Bianchi on the way into town from where I had parked the car. It cost of all of €2 to go in. I had a lovely chat with the elderly Italian guy who was looking after the picture. The Perugino Fresco is definitely worth all of €2 and I had a free conversation in Italian thrown in for good measure. I do not know if there is a separate church connected or this is a single room with the Perugino Fresco on its own. I am also not entirely sure how it survived being taken away by Napoleon when he looted the rest of Perugino Frescos? Maybe someone forgot to mention to him that it was here?
Anyway this fresco is in a lovely condition (but has apparently been restored twice). It takes up the full side of one wall facing you as you go in. Although the notices said that you could not take photos the man selling tickest was quite happy for me to take photographs, provided I did not use flash. Maybe that was my reward for speaking Italian. The Fresco itself has a multitude of figures in it plus the landscape of Lake Trasemino, as it was at the time it was painted, in the background. Lovely colours.
There are also two handwritten letters where the artist and church were arguing about how much he should be paid. I think he may have been paid a mule for part of the payment (not sure about my Italian here! I may have misunderstood that somewhere down the line).
On either side of the door there are two large crosses which used to be used for possessions through the town. I commented to the old man that they looked heavy. He told me they were not and that in his day he had been the carrier for one of the crosses in the procession
I then walked up to the central crossing (it is not really a square). On it is the Palazzo Della Corgna which seemed to be shut and a street market almost all of its goods for sale being cheap clothing but some food at the far end of the market which stretched from the Duomo to the El Rocca (which was again shut today).
I then sat in an excellent coffee shop and listened to the British Lions fluking a win against the All Blacks – so all was well at that point.
The main cathedral is a study in mottled brown marble and a plain white ceiling. There are only two short sets of pews with a wide space between them. The two Peruginos are in the first chapel on the left and then in the main window over the alter. The first is immediately obvious. The second is not labelled (well not by the labels/notices nearby). So it took a bit more figuring out. There is no way to avoid comparing the first Perugino picture with its unnaturally tall figures, to the figure of the knight in the next door chapel whose legs are unnaturally short. On the other hand the painting over the organ facing the main window is bizarrely new and jarring – definitely out of keeping with the rest of the church.
Later, on my way back to the car, I passed the church again and saw that there was a wedding taking place in the cathedral. Very formal, very Italian. Bride wore a lovely red dress, two bridesmaids in white and they were all practicing tossing the bouquet to each other. I wonder if they have the same custom in Italy or whether it means something else?
I then visited Chiesa De Gesu which has a lovely Pomarancino picture on the right-hand wall of St John and Salome – with the sword about to descend on his head/neck. The two figures are both picked out by the light/contrast in colours. His skin is covered in fur – hers in colours and she is holding the plate which is about to serve us his head but holding it as far away from her to avoid getting any blood. Partly averting eyes but partly still watching.
Then I went down to Santa Maria Dai Servi – which meant turn left off the central spine (on our way back to the car) and then walking down about five minutes to the church just outside the City walls. It is now a museum with a very damaged Perugino Fresco inside, but you can go right up to it and look at it quite closely. I read somewhere that the plaster was put on for each section at the beginning of the day and then the painter would need to cover it before the end of the day. I wanted to see if I could see the panel works on the fresco. Not sure…
The rest of the art was mediocre apart from one incredibly striking (I assume fiberglass) sculpture by Wolfgang Alexander Kossuth of Maria Maddalena at the foot of the cross with her crouched contorted figure around the base of the cross from which Christ hangs. Her stretched out arms supports the Christ figure on the cross. Somewhat inappropriately, It looked to me like he was a bat about to swoop down on her. He had very short tuffs of hair which made him almost like an aggressive figure leaning over her. Quite extraordinary.