The French Confiscation of Perugino’s Paintings and the Reputation of the Artist, 1797-1815

Abstract

In 1797, the citizens of Perugia anxiously witnessed the pillaging and removal of their most prized cultural treasures during Napoleon Bonaparte’s first military campaign on the Italian peninsula (1796-1798). Despite resistance from the locals, many paintings, rare codices and manuscripts, and other culturally significant objects were stripped from the city’s ecclesiastical institutions, libraries, and municipal buildings. These confiscated objects were crated and transported to France as part of a greater plan developed by the French government, known at that time as the Directory, to augment the national art and book collections at the museums and libraries of Paris, including the Musée Central des Arts, the Bibliothèque Nationale, and the Institut de France. To successfully organize the confiscations, a group of scientists and artists, many of whom were highly respected in their fields, were appointed to a special committee known as the Commission à la recherche des objets des sciences et des arts dans les pays conquis par les armes de la République. The commissioners travelled with the French army to Italian cities, where they were tasked with researching, selecting, and organizing the transportation of works of art to Paris. In most circumstances, they followed the terms set out in the peace treaties signed by regional leaders, including the Duke of Parma, the pope, and others, which often ceded a pre-determined number of art objects. However, a few cities were plundered indiscriminately, the most notable of which was Perugia. The looting of the city has been attributed to one commissioner by the name of Jacques-Pierre Tinet. According to the Armistice of Bologna signed on June 23, 1796, the pope had ceded three paintings from Perugia. Tinet was tasked with collecting these paintings and surveying the remaining works of art in the city. However, rather than restricting himself to the treaty’s terms, he sought out, discovered, and confiscated some of the most important cultural treasures of the Perugians. Twenty-two paintings by the Quattrocento artist Pietro Perugino were among the works of art taken. This dissertation will present the first dedicated study on the fate and fortune of the artist’s looted paintings, tracing their selection and transportation from Perugia to Paris. The first chapter will offer an investigation of Perugino’s reputation in France between the 16th and 18th centuries, examining how Giorgio Vasari’s “Vita di Pietro Perugino pittore” negatively impacted the artist’s literary reception. It will consider how Vasarian tropes about Perugino were proliferated in texts by art critics André Félibien and Rogier de Piles, as well as in popular 18th-century French collection catalogues by Louis-François Dubois de Saint-Gelais, Pierre-Jean Mariette, and François-Bernard Lépicié, which included biographies on the artist. The discussion of Perugino’s reception in France, prior to the arrival of his paintings in Paris in 1798, will set the stage for the examination of the reasons why the French army appropriated his works. Subsequent chapters will offer different facets of how the artist’s paintings were integrated into the Musée Central des Arts collection after their arrival, namely through their restoration, display, and the carefully curated narratives presented about the works in exhibition catalogues. The conclusion will consider the final fate of Perugino’s paintings and how the envoi system, developed in 1801, caused the dispersal of his works among provincial museums and churches. It will then examine the aftermath of the relocation of Perugino’s works to France, highlighting the shift in the artist’s reception among 19th-century French academicians and art theorists who visited the exhibitions in Paris and the regional cities featuring the artist’s works and began showing a renewed interest in studying the artist’s contributions to the Umbrian school of painting.