[6] Della Valle. _Storia del duomo d'Orvieto._
In this year the Pope remunerated him by adding to the money paid in the contracts a grant of an ample piece of land, situated at Chiugi near Perugia, at an annual rent of thirty baskets of grain.[7] The Borgia rooms could but just have been completed when, in January 1495, the Pope was driven to take refuge from the French king's invasion of his city in the fortified castle of Sant' Angelo. His court painter would naturally have gone with him, and when the Pope fled to Orvieto and Perugia in the summer of 1495, Pintoricchio went homewards in his train. In the next few months, an altar-piece for the monks of the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli must have been under discussion; for in February 1496 the contract was signed for the great polyptych now in the Gallery at Perugia. The fulfilment of this contract had to await the master's leisure; for a month later, on March 15th, he signs a fresh contract with the Orvietans for two Fathers of the church to be painted in the great chapel over the principal altar. He was to receive fifty ducats, six quarters of grain, such wine as might be necessary, and to have the use of a house, besides what gold and ultramarine he might require. The archives of the cathedral contain minute records of every payment made, and on the 15th November of that year he received the last instalment.[8] The documents contain allusions to other paintings by him, but the only traces that remain are a St. Gregory, a prophet, and two angels which have some likeness to his school or his followers.
[7] _Archives of Perugia_, vol. viii. ter.
[8] Della Valle. _Storia del duomo d'Orvieto._
In 1497 we have a deed, issued October 24th, commuting the tax levied upon the painter's grant of land. In this is recited and set forth Pintoricchio's complaint that the tax is too heavy, and that it swallows up all the revenues. The claim is admitted to be well founded on the part of "a faithful and devoted servant of Alexander and the Church, to whom a recompense is due for his art in painting and adorning the apostolic palace and our residence in arc castri Angeli." Instead of the grain, a yearly tax of two pounds of white wax was adjudged on July 28th, to be paid on the Feast of the Assumption, for two years, by decree of the Cardinal Camerlengo.[9] A further endorsement shows that the municipal authorities were inclined to ignore the papal decree; but a third brief, in May 1498, confirms the tenure of the land and tenements, and in February 1499 the first commutation is extended for a further term. After all these gracious concessions, it is surprising to find the tax-gatherers in the same year again trying to exact the condoned thirty baskets. Pintoricchio once more appealed to the Pontiff, with whom he was in high favour, and Alexander ordered that restitution should be made in effects or money, according to the price at which grain was valued on the Piazza in Perugia on the first Saturday in August; and in September we find Pintoricchio receiving of the vice-treasurer, Bonifazio Coppi, eighty florins in return for the tax extorted in opposition to the papal behest.[10]