There has been great excitement in recent months in Umbria for the preparations for the great exhibition dedicated to Perugino the Divine Painter.
From 4 March the exhibition for the 500th anniversary of the death of Pietro Vannucci will be held in Perugia at the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria until 11 June, with the name “the Best Master of Italy” as defined in 1500 by Agostino Chigi, great art connoisseur and patron of his time.
Let’s retrace Perugino’s life together, his artistic works, to let you experience the art of the Divine Painter that echoes not only throughout Umbria and Italy, but throughout the world.
Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci
Born in 1448 in Città della Pieve and died in 1523 in Fontignano, from a wealthy and important family in the Umbrian political panorama; in fact Perugino’s father, Cristoforo di Pietro di Giovanni, held the position of Prior of Città della Pieve in 1459.
The name Vannucci, as the family was known, derives from the name of the great-grandfather, Giovanni, known by the diminutive of Vannuccio.
Many names that distinguished his art, production and fame beyond the definition of “Best Master of Italy”, of Divine Painter, as we read in the verses of the Painter Giovanni Santi, Raphael’s father, of whom he was master, and “Il Perugino” outside the regional borders. Perugia, in fact, was much better known and thriving from the point of view of artistic productions, compared to other Umbrian cities.
Pietro Vannucci, in his early twenties, began his artistic training in Città della Pieve, in the workshops of Sienese painters. In 1460 he was already recognized for his talent so much that he was an apprentice accompanist in Arezzo to Piero della Francesca. Ten years later, he frequented the most famous workshop in Florence, that of Andrea Verrocchio where the art of goldsmithing, sculpture and painting was practiced. The Florentine environment gave Pietro Vannucci the opportunity to know and come into contact with other artists such as Botticcelli, Filippo Lippi and Leonardo.
In 1472 Perugino finished his apprenticeship and began his career as a painter after enrolling in the Compagnia di San Luca as a “painter“.
An important work of his lost, but testified by the payment made in his favour, was the commission of the decoration of the Great Hall of the Palazzo dei Priori by the Municipality of Perugia in 1475.
Perugino’s fame continues to grow and from 1478 he will be engaged in Rome, by will of Pope Sisti IV, for the decoration of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican first, and then the Sistine Chapel, with the famous scene of the “Delivery of the Keys” (in which a self-portrait of the Painter is visible). On this occasion he will come into contact with other painters such as Cosimo Rosselli, Bernardino di Betto Betti known as Pinturicchio and Luca Signorelli.
