The Suspended City

PERUGIA – Standing at the foot of the city, the acropolis of Perugia rises proudly, protected by its ancient walls. The seemingly immovable grandeur invites travelers to explore the dense maze of narrow streets, ultimately revealing an almost intimate dimension marked by the chiming of bell towers, the rhythm of the piazzas, and the shade of churches.

There exists only one imperative condition: ascend slowly. Make use of the unusual gift of time to climb along the stone pathways that, like fingers of an imposing hand, grip firmly to the heights upon which the city rests. At the heart of that palm pulses the nerve that once connected the Hill of the Sun to Landone Hill, the ancient Platea Magna, birthplace of today's Corso Vannucci.

Here stands the mighty Palazzo dei Priori, a seal placed as an enduring reminder of communal power and a treasure chest housing masterpieces within the National Gallery of Umbria, which this year marks the centenary of its inauguration.

The occasion provides a perfect opportunity to journey backward through time and relive the most significant chapters of the city's civic and artistic history, evoked throughout the gallery's halls.

The museum route guides visitors into the Chapel of the Priors, a space elevated to a temple of memory through frescoes commissioned from Benedetto Bonfigli to celebrate the glory of the communal magistracy. The Perugian painter received the commission shortly after his acclaimed residency in the Vatican. He was engaged in the vast decorative campaign of the chapel for approximately twenty-five years, from 1455 to 1479. The iconographic program aimed to honor two saints: Ludovico of Toulouse and Ercolano, with scenes drawn from their respective hagiographic legends. On one side, the Angevin prince who chose to don the Franciscan habit, dear to the patrons primarily for political reasons given the favorable relations between the French lineage and the Commune. On the other, Ercolano, defensor civitatis until his death against the army of the Goths under King Totila, who arrived at the walls of Perugia before conquering it in 547.

Visitors will easily recognize among the scenes animating the chapel walls a familiar urban profile—the very one explored during the slow ascent that led them here.

An ancient city, suspended above the wooden seats of the Priors, yet still alive and recognizable as the scenes unfold. It is the fabulous city that serves as backdrop to the Miracle of Saint Ludovico set in Messina, perhaps too distant and foreign for Bonfigli, who then sought to render it by drawing on his knowledge of the real city. Thus it is easy to identify the bell tower of San Pietro, as it appeared before Rossellini's interventions, then the great apse window of San Domenico and the towers that once populated Landone Hill.

The same view, even more faithful, appears in the First Translation of the Body of Saint Ercolano, depicting the actual route from today's Borgo XX Giugno to the heart of the acropolis.

Again, the real city is reproduced precisely in the episode of the Capture of Perugia, where the skin of the fortified walls shines—those walls that strenuously attempted to protect the citizens from enemy siege. A dense forest of towers and palaces reveals to travelers how fifteenth-century Perugia appeared before disappearing definitively in the drastic Farnese project to construct the Rocca Paolina.

Turning one's gaze, the great south wall of the chapel then makes room for the solemn procession accompanying Ercolano's coffin in the scene of the Second Translation, where Bonfigli celebrates the sacred narrative in what was intended to be the most important episode of the entire cycle, despite visible gaps in the fresco that partially compromise its legibility.

The city now unfolds in all its magnificence, starting from the now-vanished church of Santo Stefano in Castellare to the Cathedral square, with at its center the imposing mass of the Palazzo Pubblico, almost sealing forever the luster of the patronage.

In all likelihood, the sumptuous project of the Chapel of the Priors represents one of the most advanced figurative urban testimonies of the era. It is the fabric of memory skillfully woven by Bonfigli, who succeeded in merging the actual physiognomy of the city with its civic identity in what art historian Bruno Toscano incisively defined as "the most important cycle of the early Renaissance in Umbria," even though the meteoric rise of his fellow countryman Perugino would soon overshadow his fame. It remains now for travelers to preserve the memory, where the suspended city continues to float.

Caterina Fioravanti
Article published in MedioEvo Magazine No. 257, June 2018