PERUGINO, Pietro

In the nineteenth century this painting was attributed to Raphael.

This panel belonged to the former polyptych of the Certosa di Pavia. It is signed lower left: PETRVS PERVSINV(S) PINXIT.

Pietro Perugino depicted the Virgin of the Assumption, to whom the altar was dedicated, in his altarpiece for the Sistine Chapel. The painting was later destroyed when Michelangelo’s Last Judgment was installed, but a drawing copied from it preserves its composition.

This drawing was made by an artist in the circle of Perugino.

This painting was commissioned from Perugino to form the other side of Filippino Lippi’s altarpiece, the Deposition, which was completed by Perugino after the death of Lippi.

The represented saints in this altarpiece (called the Vallombrosa Altarpiece) are, from the left to the right, Giovanni Guadalberto, founder of the monastery at Vallombrosa, Bernardo degli Uberti, Vallombrosan monk, Benedetto, inspirer of the Vallombrosan rules, and Archangel Michael.

The detail shows Giovanni Guadalberto, founder of the monastery at Vallombrosa.

The detail shows the Archangel Michael.

There are four panels in Chicago depicting moments when Christ’s special nature was revealed: his birth, his baptism by St John the Baptist in the river Jordan, his conversation with a woman of Samaria at the well of the patriarch Jacob, and his appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection. These four panels, together with another one depicting the Resurrection, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, once constituted a predella - a series of small pictures, often with narrative content, forming the base of an altarpiece. In this case, the painting that was positioned above the predella as the focal point of the altarpiece is unidentified, it is possibly the large Crucifixion in the church of Sant’Agostino, Siena.

Perugino’s serene and decorous art was widely influential in his native region of Umbria and beyond, most famously through his contact with the young Raphael.

The fresco is from the cycle of the life of Christ in the Sistine Chapel, it is located in the first compartment on the north wall. It was painted by Perugino and Pinturicchio, the latter being probably responsible for the landscape and minor scenes. There are two secondary scenes, Christ Preaching on the right and the Sermon of John the Baptist on the left.

The paintings were to be read in pairs, one from the left and one from the right. Thus the Baptism of Christ faces the Circumcision of Moses’ son by Perugino and Pinturicchio.

A comparison of the pairs of scenes shows clearly that the principal concern was to show how the new religion of Christ was deeper and more spiritual than the Jewish religion. Thus the pair of frescoes showing the Baptism and the Circumcision emphasize how baptism - prefigured, according to Augustine and many of the Fathers of Church, by circumcision - represents a “spiritual circumcision.”

It is signed on the arrow as “Petrus Perusinus pinxit”. The figure is a version of St Sebastian on The Madonna between St John the Baptist and St Sebastian in the Uffizi Gallery.

On the entry wall Cato is depicted. At right the compartment on the left wall with Famous Men can be seen.

In a painted niche to the right of the door on the entry wall stands the red-robed figure of the Roman consul Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.), a statesman, celebrated for his incorruptible virtue. In the accompanying Latin inscription he urges that those required to give speeches or serve as judges set aside their personal feelings such as love and hate.

On the vaulting planetary gods and signs of the zodiac are depicted. In the centre Apollo can be seen.

This detail of the vaulting represents Mercury.

This detail of the vaulting represents Jupiter.

This detail of the vaulting represents Mars.

This detail of the vaulting represents Venus.

Pope Julius II had Perugino decorate the vault in the third, rear room of the group of Stanze, in the Stanza dell’Incendio di Borgo. Four tondi present views into heaven, of God the Father, Christ and his tempter, the Trinity and apostles, and finally Christ between Justice and Grace. These ceiling frescoes were clearly intended to relate to planned murals, but nothing is known about the themes that Julius had planned. Between 1514 and 1517 Raphael and his workshop frescoed the walls at Leo X’s behest. The scenes depicted clearly relate to the new pope.

The fresco is from the cycle of the life of Christ in the Sistine Chapel, it is located in the fifth compartment on the north wall.

Likely in charge of the entire project of the fresco decoration on the walls of the Sistine Chapel, Pietro Perugino retained for himself not only representations on the altar wall (which eventually were replaced by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment) but also other significant scenes, such as Christ Handing the Keys to St Peter, a most fitting subject for Pope Sixtus’ chapel. The fresco is located in the fifth compartment on the north wall.

Among his frescoes in the Sistine Chapel the Christ Handing the Keys to St Peter is stylistically the most instructive. The main figures are organized in a frieze in two tightly compressed rows close to the surface of the picture and well below the horizon. The principal group, showing Christ handing the gold and silver keys to the kneeling St Peter, is surrounded by the other Apostles, including Judas (fifth figure to the left of Christ), all with halos, together with portraits of contemporaries, including one said to be a self-portrait (fifth from the right edge). The flat, open piazza is divided by coloured stones into large foreshortened rectangles, although they are not used in defining the spatial organization. Nor is the relationship between the figures and the felicitous invention of the porticoed Temple of Salomon that dominates the picture effectively resolved. The triumphal arches at the extremities appear as superfluous antiquarian references, suitable for a Roman audience. Scattered in the middle distance are two secondary scenes from the life of Christ, including the Tribute Money on the left and the Stoning of Christ on the right.

The style of the figures is dependent upon Verrocchio. The active drapery, with its massive complexity, and the figures, particularly several apostles, including St John the Evangelist, with beautiful features, long flowing hair, elegant demeanour, and refinement recall St Thomas from Verrocchio’s bronze group on Orsanmichele. The poses of the actors fall into a small number of basic attitudes that are consistently repeated, usually in reverse from one side to the other, signifying the use of the same cartoon. They are graceful and elegant figures who tend to stand firmly on the earth. Their heads are smallish in proportion to the rest of their bodies, and their features are delicately distilled with considerable attention to minor detail.

The octagonal temple with its ample porches that dominates the central axis must have had behind it a project created by an architect, but Perugino’s treatment is like the rendering of a wooden model, painted with exactitude. The building with its arches serves as a backdrop in front of which the action unfolds. Perugino has made a significant contribution in rendering the landscape. The sense of an infinite world that stretches across the horizon is stronger than in almost any other work of his contemporaries, and the feathery trees against the cloud-filled sky with the bluish hills in the distance represent a solution that later painters would find instructive, especially Raphael.

The fresco is from the cycle of the life of Christ in the Sistine Chapel, it is located in the fifth compartment on the north wall.

Likely in charge of the entire project of the fresco decoration on the walls of the Sistine Chapel, Pietro Perugino retained for himself not only representations on the altar wall (which eventually were replaced by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment) but also other significant scenes, such as Christ Handing the Keys to St Peter, a most fitting subject for Pope Sixtus’ chapel. The fresco is located in the fifth compartment on the north wall.

Among his frescoes in the Sistine Chapel the Christ Handing the Keys to St Peter is stylistically the most instructive. The main figures are organized in a frieze in two tightly compressed rows close to the surface of the picture and well below the horizon. The principal group, showing Christ handing the gold and silver keys to the kneeling St Peter, is surrounded by the other Apostles, including Judas (fifth figure to the left of Christ), all with halos, together with portraits of contemporaries, including one said to be a self-portrait (fifth from the right edge). The flat, open piazza is divided by coloured stones into large foreshortened rectangles, although they are not used in defining the spatial organization. Nor is the relationship between the figures and the felicitous invention of the porticoed Temple of Salomon that dominates the picture effectively resolved. The triumphal arches at the extremities appear as superfluous antiquarian references, suitable for a Roman audience. Scattered in the middle distance are two secondary scenes from the life of Christ, including the Tribute Money on the left and the Stoning of Christ on the right.

The style of the figures is dependent upon Verrocchio. The active drapery, with its massive complexity, and the figures, particularly several apostles, including St John the Evangelist, with beautiful features, long flowing hair, elegant demeanour, and refinement recall St Thomas from Verrocchio’s bronze group on Orsanmichele. The poses of the actors fall into a small number of basic attitudes that are consistently repeated, usually in reverse from one side to the other, signifying the use of the same cartoon. They are graceful and elegant figures who tend to stand firmly on the earth. Their heads are smallish in proportion to the rest of their bodies, and their features are delicately distilled with considerable attention to minor detail.

The octagonal temple with its ample porches that dominates the central axis must have had behind it a project created by an architect, but Perugino’s treatment is like the rendering of a wooden model, painted with exactitude. The building with its arches serves as a backdrop in front of which the action unfolds. Perugino has made a significant contribution in rendering the landscape. The sense of an infinite world that stretches across the horizon is stronger than in almost any other work of his contemporaries, and the feathery trees against the cloud-filled sky with the bluish hills in the distance represent a solution that later painters would find instructive, especially Raphael.

Perugino’s portrait and that of the architect are included in this scene, at a respectful remove from the real dignitaries. The fifth figure from the right in this grouping is a self-portrait. The man holding a square to the right is thought to be a portrait of the architect of the Sistine Chapel.

The octagonal temple with its ample porches dominates the central axis. The spatial construction is based upon a one point perspective system in which the vanishing point is located inside the doorway of the domed church, which has lateral porches.

The triumphal arches at the extremities appear as superfluous antiquarian references, suitable for a Roman audience. This detail shows the arch at the left.

The triumphal arches at the extremities appear as superfluous antiquarian references, suitable for a Roman audience. This detail shows the arch at the right.

The actors are graceful and elegant figures who tend to stand firmly on the earth. Their heads are smallish in proportion to the rest of their bodies, and their features are delicately distilled with considerable attention to minor detail.

The cool precision of contemporary portraits in this fresco is not excelled, even by Ghirlandaio.

There are four panels in Chicago depicting moments when Christ’s special nature was revealed: his birth, his baptism by St John the Baptist in the river Jordan, his conversation with a woman of Samaria at the well of the patriarch Jacob, and his appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection. These four panels, together with another one depicting the Resurrection, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, once constituted a predella - a series of small pictures, often with narrative content, forming the base of an altarpiece. In this case, the painting that was positioned above the predella as the focal point of the altarpiece is unidentified, it is possibly the large Crucifixion in the church of Sant’Agostino, Siena.

Perugino’s serene and decorous art was widely influential in his native region of Umbria and beyond, most famously through his contact with the young Raphael.

The picture shows one of the four ceiling medallions.

The picture shows one of the four ceiling medallions.

This painting was commissioned by Isabella d’Este (1474-1539) for her studiolo. The artist was given a detailed iconographic program drawn up by the court humanist and astrologer Paride Ceresara Perugino began the commission in 1503 following the minute instructions provided. After many disagreements and disappointments, he finished the painting in 1505.

This altarpiece depicting the Crucifixion with the Virgin, seven saints and angels was commissioned in 1502 for the church Sant’Agostino in Siena. It was probably executed between 1503 and 1506, the payment for the artist being documented in 1506. The represented saint are, from the left, St Monica, St Augustine, the Virgin, an unidentified saint (perhaps St Catherine of Alexandria), St Magdalen, St John the Evangelist, St Jerome, and St John the Baptist.

There are drawings related to the frescoes in the Collegio del Cambio that are so precise and delicate that earlier scholars felt them to be preliminary drawings by Perugino, but today they are considered to be workshop products reproduced for study purposes. Only a very few drawings are now generally recognized as genuine studies by Perugino himself, including one for the Cumaean Sibyl. Its impetuous, sketchlike style makes it clear that it was a design drawing.

Joseph of Arimathea looks on contemplatively as a tearful Nicodemus supports Christ’s lifeless body on a stone tomb, which is inscribed in Latin with the artist’s name and the work’s subject, “sepulcher of Christ.” The painting may originally have been positioned above an altar in a private chapel, where its somber mood was meant to encourage devotion and prayer. Despite his bloody wounds, Christ is depicted with an idealized body, like that of a classical statue, and a serene expression, suggesting his eventual triumph over death.

The timeless beauty of the figures and the perfection that emanates from his compositions earned Perugino the epithet of the “Divine Painter”, a name awarded to him by Giovanni Santi, the father of his student Raphael.

The sitter of this portrait is the procurator of the convent of Vallombrosa from where the painting came.

The identification of the depicted Vallombrosian monk is revealed by the inscription in golden letters.

Each of the two compartments (lunettes) on the left wall presents a row of six figures standing in front of a low landscape horizon. Above these, personifications of the four cardinal virtues sit enthroned on clouds, two in each lunette. Beside each of the Virtues is an ornamental inscription tablet flanked by putti and containing a Latin distich identifying her and celebrating the exemplars below. Each trio of figures is made up of two Romans and one Greek; their names appear on the ground beneath their feet.

The represented famous men in the first compartment are Fabius Maximus, Socrates, Numa Pompilius, Furius Camillus, Pittacus, and Trajan. Above them the Cardinal Virtues Prudentia and Justitia are depicted. At the right we can see Perugino’s self-portrait.

For his arrangement of the heroes in the lunettes, Perugino borrowed from Ghirlandaio’s paintings in the Sala dei Gigli in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. More than likely he knew those works firsthand, for he had himself been commissioned to execute some of the paintings in that room in 1482.

The combination of ancient heroes with personifications of Virtues was prefigured in the cycle of paintings by Taddeo di Bartolo for the antechapel of the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.

Each of the two compartments (lunettes) on the left wall presents a row of six figures standing in front of a low landscape horizon. Above these, personifications of the four cardinal virtues sit enthroned on clouds, two in each lunette. Beside each of the Virtues is an ornamental inscription tablet flanked by putti and containing a Latin distich identifying her and celebrating the exemplars below. Each trio of figures is made up of two Romans and one Greek; their names appear on the ground beneath their feet.

The represented famous men in the second compartment are Lucius Sicinius, Leonidas, Horatius Cocles, Publius Scipio, Pericles, and Quintus Cincinnatus. Above them the Cardinal Virtues Fortitudo and Temperantia are depicted. Perugino’s self-portrait is on the left.

The detail shows Fabius Maximus, Socrates, and Numa Pompilius. The Cardinal Virtue Prudentia is above them.

The detail shows Furius Camillus, Pittacus, and Trajan. The Cardinal Virtue Justitia is above them.

The detail shows Lucius Sicinius, Leonidas, and Horatius Cocles. The Cardinal Virtue Fortitudo is above them.

The detail shows Publius Scipio, Pericles, and Quintus Cincinnatus. The Cardinal Virtue Temperantia is above them.

The detail shows the head of Pericles.

The detail shows The detail shows Lucius Sicinius.

This painting was part of a series of eight panels painted for an altar complex in the Church of the Annunziata in Florence. The commission for the pictures was originally given to Filippino Lippi, and then was passed to Perugino, who finished the work in November of 1507. The altar was definitively dismantled and dispersed in 1654. Five other paintings from the group are known to survive; two at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, two at Altenburg and one in a private collection in South Africa.

Filippo Benizi (1233-1285) was a general superior of the Order of the Servites, and credited with reviving the order. Pope Leo X had beatified him in 1516; and Pope Clement X canonized him as a saint in 1671.

On the open book is the inscription, “SERVUS TUUS SUM EGO ET FILIUS ANCILLE TUE”.

The picture shows one of the four ceiling medallions.

The paiting is accepted as the work of Perugino, however, the collaboration of assistants is assumed.

This altarpiece was intended for the chapel of Angelo Tezi in the church of Sant’Agostino in Perugia. The Virgin is enthroned on clouds with the Christ Child, whose right hand is raised in blessing. On the Virgin’s right is the Augustian hermit Nicholas of Tolentino, and on her left is the Franciscan monk St Bernard of Siena. Kneeling in adoration below are St Sebastian and, on the left, St Jerome, a figure very similar to the St Jerome in Raphael’s London Crucifixion.

The painting was executed with the collaboration of Eusebio da San Giorgio (c. 1478-after 1535 in Perugia) who was a pupil of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo.

The represented saints are Sts Michael, Catherine of Alexandrai, Apolonia, and John the Evangelist. The painting is signed as “PETRVS PERVSINVS PINXIT”.

The represented saints are probably Sts John the Evangelists and Magdalen.

The attribution to Perugino goes back to the origin of the picture in the Medicean inventories. Modern criticism however consigns it at least in part to the school, and indeed in relation to other works of this master there is a definite weakness in several respects. It is nevertheless difficult to erase it entirely from the list of Perugino’s works, if only for the composition, so well balanced and tranquil, and for the atmosphere of suspended contemplation.

Formerly attributed to Leonardo, the name of Perugino is however accepted now unanimously. It is a painting of great beauty, and particularly happy both as conception and execution with its finely graduated, sensitive colour, low in tone and warmly brown. It comes very near to Raphael. Perugino’s Magdalen is characteristic of his favoured type, with an oval, light-filled face delineated with delicately small features. Nonetheless, it could almost be a portrait, and might even have been one. In fact Perugino was skilled in that growing genre, in which his tight applications were able to register likenesses.

Perugino painted his Marriage of the Virgin for a chapel in the cathedral in Perugia, which was completed in 1489, and in which the Virgin’s engagement ring was kept. This valuable relic had been stolen from a church in Chiusi in 1478 and had only recently been retrieved, so it is not surprising that it takes pride of place in the centre of this picture.

The fresco is from the cycle of the life of Moses in the Sistine Chapel. It is located in the first compartment on the south wall. It was painted by Perugino and Pinturicchio, the latter being probably responsible for the landscape and minor scenes.

This fresco depicts the story of Moses’ journey to Egypt after exile in the land of Midian, when the angel tells him to circumcise his second son.

The paintings were to be read in pairs, one from the left and one from the right. Thus the Baptism of Christ faces the Circumcision of Moses’ son by Perugino and Pinturicchio.

A comparison of the pairs of scenes shows clearly that the principal concern was to show how the new religion of Christ was deeper and more spiritual than the Jewish religion. Thus the pair of frescoes showing the Baptism and the Circumcision emphasize how baptism - prefigured, according to Augustine and many of the Fathers of Church, by circumcision - represents a “spiritual circumcision.”

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Gioacchino Rossini: Moses, Moses’ Prayer

The scene in the right part of the fresco represent the circumcision.

The panel is signed and dated and was painted for the Convent of Santa Chiara at Florence. It was carried off to France by the Napoleonic troops in 1799 and given back to Italy in 1815. One should note the beauty of construction in the grouping of the well-spaced and harmonious figures round the dead Christ (though certain conventionalities are not wanting) and especially the refined and delicate painting with its clear design and its soft gradations of colour, and the lyrical atmosphere of the landscape.

On the back wall the scene of the Nativity with the Adoration of the Shepherds is depicted.

There are four panels in Chicago depicting moments when Christ’s special nature was revealed: his birth, his baptism by St John the Baptist in the river Jordan, his conversation with a woman of Samaria at the well of the patriarch Jacob, and his appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection. These four panels, together with another one depicting the Resurrection, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, once constituted a predella - a series of small pictures, often with narrative content, forming the base of an altarpiece. In this case, the painting that was positioned above the predella as the focal point of the altarpiece is unidentified, it is possibly the large Crucifixion in the church of Sant’Agostino, Siena.

Perugino’s serene and decorous art was widely influential in his native region of Umbria and beyond, most famously through his contact with the young Raphael.

One of Perugino’s most favoured subjects at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the Nativity, set in a wide landscape, and in which only a few figures appear, in reverent poses. The version in Bergamo was painted in Perugino’s workshop with the direct participation of the master, who must have personally decided about the changes between the various versions.

This panel formed the central part of a large polyptych, which was dismembered and then partly lost. The altarpiece was executed for the church Sant’Agostino in Perugia.

There are four panels in Chicago depicting moments when Christ’s special nature was revealed: his birth, his baptism by St John the Baptist in the river Jordan, his conversation with a woman of Samaria at the well of the patriarch Jacob, and his appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection. These four panels, together with another one depicting the Resurrection, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, once constituted a predella - a series of small pictures, often with narrative content, forming the base of an altarpiece. In this case, the painting that was positioned above the predella as the focal point of the altarpiece is unidentified, it is possibly the large Crucifixion in the church of Sant’Agostino, Siena.

Perugino’s serene and decorous art was widely influential in his native region of Umbria and beyond, most famously through his contact with the young Raphael.

There are drawings related to the frescoes in the Collegio del Cambio that are so precise and delicate that earlier scholars felt them to be preliminary drawings by Perugino, but today they are considered to be workshop products reproduced for study purposes. The drawing representing Pericles belongs to this group.

Perugino memorialised himself in the Collegio del Cambio with an imposing self-portrait. The inscription below it identifies him as “PETRVS PERVSINVS EGREGIVS PICTOR.” The Latin epigram that follows reads: “When the art of colour had been lost, he rediscovered it with patient determination, and when no one was giving it life, he was the first to create art that was beautiful.” The verse was doubtless composed by Maturanzio. Its wording and its placement on the pillar between the lunettes presenting ancient paragons of virtue leave no doubt that the painter was proud of his accomplishment. It almost appears as though he wished to be thought of as a Famous Man himself.

Painted for the church of San Giusto near Florence. One of the most sober works amongst the numerous paintings of pietistic intent by this master.

The polyptych, painted originally for Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, is named after the collections to which it later belonged. The six panels represent the Angel of the Annunciation and the Virgin Annunciate (top corners, 44 x 35 cm each), the Crucifixion between the Virgin, Magdalen, and St John the Evangelist (top centre, 41 x 82 cm), Sts Michael and John the Baptist, Sts Jerome and George (lower left and right, 132 x 35 cm each), the Nativity (lower centre, 97 x 82 cm).

The three panels (all cut down) shown in this picture represent the Archangel Michael (126 x 58 cm), the Virgin and Child with an Angel (127 x 64 cm), and the Archangel Raphael with Tobias 126 x 58 cm), respectively. These panels form a part of an altarpiece commissioned from Perugino for the Charterhouse of Pavia, a Carthusian monastery patronised by the Duke of Milan.

The altarpiece originally comprised six parts: God the Father at the top, with on either side the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin of the Annunciation and, below, the three panels in the National Gallery showing the Virgin adoring the Christ Child flanked by two other archangels, Michael and Raphael. Michael, as commander of the celestial host who vanquished Lucifer, is customarily shown in armour. Perugino’s use of oil paint has enabled him to depict light reflected from the metal, and objects - such as the pommel of the sword and the red strap - mirrored in it. Michael’s scales for weighing souls hang from a tree behind him. The devil at his feet was trimmed off when all three panels were cut.

In the painting, the figures’ sweet angelic air is as characteristic of Perugino’s idealised world as the graceful landscape with its feathery trees. But the only sign of the labour-saving devices which were later to spell the artist’s decline is in the three angels of the central panel. They seem to have been transferred to the painting at a late stage from a full-scale drawing (cartoon) not designed for this composition, and appear in at least one other picture by Perugino from this period.

The name of the man is pointed out by an inscription on the back side of the picture. Francesco delle Opere was a Florentine craftsman, carver of precious stones, and certainly a very pious man, as suggested the words “Timete Deum” on the scroll in his hand. He is posed against an airy landscape, while details of the figure are described with Flemish meticulousness.

Identification of the model is complicated by the artist’s evident indifference to the depiction of individual characteristics and achievements. But it is the very impersonality that is remarkable in the portraits of an artist who was more concerned with the compositional arrangement of figures and spatial rhythm.

After the last supper, Jesus asked the apostles Peter, James, and John to accompany him into a nearby garden. In the gospels the cup represents the agonizing, imminent completion of his human destiny, which Jesus prayed might be removed, then surrendered to the divine will.

In this compartment of the right wall, on the left the prophets Isaiah, Moses, Daniel, David, Jeremiah, and Solomon are represented. On the right the Eritrean, Persian, Cumaean, Libyan, Tiburtine, and Delphian sibyls are depicted. Each figure is provided with a fragmentary prophecy on an inscription ribbon.

Above, God the Father in a gloriole surrounded by angels can be seen.

This detail of the group of sibyls shows the Eritrean, Persian, Cumaean, and Libyan sibyls.

The detail shows the head of the Tiburtine Sibyl.

The detail shows the head of Solomon.

The detail shows Daniel and David.

This well-preserved picture and four others in the Art Institute of Chicago formed the base (predella) of an altarpiece - possibly the large Crucifixion in the church of Sant’Agostino, Siena.

The three panels in the Vatican Museums representing Sts Benedict, Flavia, and Placidus formed part of the predella of a polyptych for the high altar of the Church of San Pietro in Perugia for which Perugino was given a commission in 1495 and which he began the following year. The work was dismantled when the church was restored (1591). The central panel illustrated the Ascension with the twelve Apostles, the Virgin and angels.

The three panels in the Vatican Museums representing Sts Benedict, Flavia, and Placidus formed part of the predella of a polyptych for the high altar of the Church of San Pietro in Perugia for which Perugino was given a commission in 1495 and which he began the following year. The work was dismantled when the church was restored (1591). The central panel illustrated the Ascension with the twelve Apostles, the Virgin and angels.

The three panels in the Vatican Museums representing Sts Benedict, Flavia, and Placidus formed part of the predella of a polyptych for the high altar of the Church of San Pietro in Perugia for which Perugino was given a commission in 1495 and which he began the following year. The work was dismantled when the church was restored (1591). The central panel illustrated the Ascension with the twelve Apostles, the Virgin and angels.

The depicted scenes are Christ Handing the Keys to St Peter by Pietro Perugino and the Last Supper by Cosimo Rosselli.

Compared to the idealized depictions of classical heroes, Perugino’s portrait is quite realistic and modest. His contemporary clothing, the bust format make it clear that he belongs to a different world than the one represented on either side.

There are drawings related to the frescoes in the Collegio del Cambio that are so precise and delicate that earlier scholars felt them to be preliminary drawings by Perugino, but today they are considered to be workshop products reproduced for study purposes. The drawing representing Socrates belongs to this group.

This painting was part of a series of eight panels painted for an altar complex in the church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. The altarpiece had the form of a Roman triumphal arch, with large scenes flanked by Perugino’s standing saints, which are notable for the subdued colouring and subtle treatment of light. The commission for the altarpiece was originally given to Filippino Lippi, and then was passed to Perugino, who finished the work in November of 1507. The altar was definitively dismantled and dispersed in 1654.

All of the painted panels survive, though those of individual standing saints have been cropped to varying degrees at the top and bottom. The Deposition (probably from the front side of the altarpiece) is in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence; an Assumption of the Virgin (probably from the reverse side) is in a side chapel of the SS. Annunziata, Florence; a pair of panels, St Margaret of Antioch and the Blessed Francis of Siena are in the Lindenau-Museum, Altenburg; and two more saints, cut down to half-length, Catherine of Alexandria and Filippo Benizzi are in a private collection and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome, respectively; another pair, St John the Baptist and St Lucy are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

There are several hypothetical reconstructions of the altarpiece which almost certainly consisted of only these eight paintings.