LUIGI, ANDREA DI, commonly called L'INGEGNO, and some times ANDREA DI ASSISI, was born at Assisi about the middle of the 15th century.
The common story of this painter, originating with Vessel, has been completely overthrown by Rumohr in his ' Italienische Forschungen.' The account of Vasari, which has been invariably followed by all subsequent writers on the subject, doe]] to the time of Rumohr, is that L'I?gegno was the rival of Raffaelle in the achool of Pietro Peru gine, that he became suddenly blind while assisting his master Perugino in the Sietino Chapel ; and that the then pope, Sixtus IV., granted the unfortunate painter a pension for life, which he enjoyed until his eighty-sixth year. ltumobr has shown this account to be, with one exception, wholly incorrect; the only possible part of it is that L'Ingegno assisted Perugino in the Vatican ; this he may have done, as ho was his Resistant in some works in the Cambio, or Exchange, of Perugia.
L'Ingegno cannot have been Reffnelle's fellow•pnpil with Perugino, for he painted only one year after time birth of Raffaelle in 1484, a coat of arms for the town-ball of Assisi, where he was then an esta blished master. He also, long after the death of Sixtus IV., held official situations at Assisi, which can leave no doubt of his retaining hie sight. In 1505 he was procurator ; in 1507, arbitrator ; in 1510, syndic—syndicator potestatia; and in 1511 he was appointed by Julius II. papal treasurer at Assisi—Camerarius Apostolieus in Civitate Assisii. L'Ingegno therefore, instead of receiving a pension from
Sixtus IV., received a salary from Julius H., twenty-seven years after the death of Sixtus, who died in 1484. From these several appoints ments be had probably given up painting, which may have been either owing to weakness of eight or from greater advantages to be had elsewhere : his brother was one of the canons of the cathedral of Assisi The only certainly known work by L'Ingegno is the coat of arms already mentioned. The prophets and sibyls in the Cambio at Perugia are assigned to him, but it is quite uncertain what portion of those works was executed by him : the prophets and sibyls also in the Basilica of Assisi were attributed to him, but it has been shown that they were executed in the 16th century by Adone Doni. There are further attributed to L'Ingegno two pictures in the galleries at Berlin and Vienna; and a ' Holy Family' in the Louvre, a beautiful small work in the style of Perugino. Itumohr conjectures, from the style of L'Ingegno in these works attributed to him, that he was the pupil or imitator of Niccolo Alunno. He was probably called L'Ingegno more for a general aptness for business, than for any particular skill in painting.
(Vasari, Vtte de' Pittori, &c. ; Lanzi, Stories Pittorica, &c. ; Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen ; Waagen, Kunstwerke and Kiinstler in Paris.)