Perugino was perhaps out of his element in this new undertaking. He had no choice of subjects, for they had been selected for him by the members of the Guild, who throughout show a most naïve interest and concern in the decoration of their rooms. These men were determined to secure the very best work they could; their seats, their panels, their doors were of the finest wood, worked by the most skilful carpenters and artists of the day. They were not wise in literature themselves, so they applied to the best scholar of their city, Francesco Matarazzo, for instructions, and it was he who most probably arranged the curious mixture of classic subjects and inscriptions which Perugino, with a certain child-like and ingenuous persistence, painted as he had painted all the familiar subjects of the Bible. For the ceiling of the audience chamber, which deals entirely with mythological figures, he may have consulted certain old illustrated missals in the Perugian archives; one of these, a Cicero (unhappily stolen from the library some years ago), very probably suggested some of the figures and beasts of the Zodiac which decorate the ceiling.
The impression made upon one by the painting in the Cambio is very calm and pleasing. The whole is a harmony--a harmony of subjects sacred and profane such as the classic-loving minds of scholars in the days of the Renaissance delighted to create, and give to one of their purely religious artists to carry out successfully. The left wall is covered by two frescoes--two lines of figures--eight Romans and four Greeks. Behind these figures stretches the fair, calm, Umbrian landscape, dear to the heart of the Umbrian painter. In the sky above them are four female figures, Prudence and Justice, Fortitude and Temperance, and below them small angels hold the long inscription which is written over every group. Very soft and tender is Perugino's conception of Roman Emperors and Greek philosophers. They have the hands of women, their faces are sweet like the faces of saints. They look a little sad, and very gentle as they bend towards each other--not one of these men could have proved a ruler of nations. What did Perugino mean when he painted in the second group this visionary host of warriors? Surely he dreamed of some fair Umbrian girls that he had met in May along the lanes, but not of heroes. These youths, with their wonderful headgear and their long, limp bodies would have fallen as field flowers fall before the scythe or even a summer shower. That they are fair no one denies, and in the face of Cincinnatus there is a mysterious sweetness which disarms our criticism; but they are merely spiritual or imaginative portraits of the men whose names are carefully inscribed beneath them. The opposite wall is covered by a group of Prophets and of Sibyls--a combination which was not uncommon in later Christian art. To the left Isaiah, Moses, Daniel, David and Jeremiah, and opposite them the Persian, Cumaean, Lybian, Tyburtine and Delphic sibyls. Perugino crowned this most singular mixture of pagan and of Hebrew figures with a portrait of God the Father in glory. Many of the faces in this group are very beautiful, notably that of Daniel, which is said to be a portrait of young Raphael, and is a truly exquisite thing. Jeremiah is represented as a young and very melancholy man, and his face is said to be a portrait of Pinturicchio, but if this fact is true the likeness is much idealized.