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Pietro Vanucci, called Il Perugino (1448-1523), a nickname that comes from his hometown, Perugia, was an Italian 14th century painter in transition to the High Renaissance. His two fundamental influences were Piero della Francesca and Andrea Verrocchio.
Perugino was one of the first to use oil painting in Italy. He had Rafael as a student. It has been said of him that it was after Giotto that he had created a national language. He has been called "the best national teacher."
He studied Piero della Francesca in “The Polyptych of Saint Anthony, integrating the rigorous architecture and the characters. With Andrea Verrocchio, in Florence, he became familiar with the treatment of the body and space; Verrocchio brought naturalism and linear modes.
Il Perugino's style has been defined as the initiator of a new way of painting that was called maniera moderna ("modern style"), marking the taste of an entire era.
The main characteristics of the new style are: formal purity, the serenity of the large compositions, the well-defined and elegant drawing, the clear color, full of light and with refined modulations of chiaroscuro with the characters freed from earthly air characteristics. angelic.
A very first work is the Virgin and Child, where a flamenco influence is demonstrated. His work San Bernardino cures the daughter of Giovanni Petrazio da Rieti from an ulcer is exhibited in the National Gallery of Umbria. Another piece is Scenes from the Life of Saint Bernardino, which was commissioned in 1473 by the Franciscans to spread the cult of Saint Bernardino of Siena.
The Handing of the Keys to Saint Peter is in the Sistine Chapel. As he had achieved notable fame, around the year 1479 Pope Sixtus IV called him to Rome, where he painted The Apse of the Chapel of the Conception, in the choir of the Vatican Basilica. This work was destroyed in 1609 when the reconstruction of the basilica was undertaken.
Pope Sixtus IV commissioned him to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel alongside painters such as Botticelli, Ghirlandiao and Cossimo Roselli. Portraits of Popes, Moses' return to Egypt and circumcision of Eliezer (second son of Moses and Zipporah) are preserved from his intervention.
The Baptism of Christ is the only signed work in the entire Chapel and The Handing Over of the Keys to Saint Peter is its best-known work.
His best portraits are from this period, in which he demonstrated a keen spirit of analytical observation, capable of even investigating psychology.
His skill as a portrait painter is evident in the portraits of Fra Baldassarre and Don Biagio Milanesi and in that of Francesco delle Opere.
In Florence he entered the Laurentian circle, where his ideally harmonious painting presented a close analogy with the philosophy of the Neoplatonic Academy. This influence produced a work with a mythological theme that has traditionally been called Apollo and Marsyas, although currently there is a tendency to identify the figure who is seated with the Sicilian shepherd Daphnis. The figures, immersed in a landscape of calm harmony, are sweetly polished and quote classic works: If Apollo imitates Praxiteles' Hermes, the seated figure (Marsyas or Daphnis) is reminiscent of Ares Ludovisi by Lysippus, from the Palazzo Altemps museum in Rome.
In Florence he married Chiara Fancelli in 1493, the model for many of his Virgins. By then his Florentine workshop surpassed in fame even those of the best local painters, such as Botticelli, Flippino Lippi or Ghirlandaio.
From between 1494 and 1495 it is the Pieta for the Florentine convent of nuns of Santa Clara. The Vallombrosa Altarpiece, today in the Accademia Gallery, belongs to this period.
From his Perugia Workshop came numerous masterpieces such as The Altarpiece of the Decemvirs, so called because it was commissioned by the decemvirs of Perugia for the chapel of the Public Palace. From this altarpiece, the Virgin with Child and Saints Lorenzo, Ludovico of Tolosa, Herculano and Constantius (1495-1496) are preserved in the Vatican Pinacoteca.
The polyptych painted for the church of Saint Peter in Perugia also dates from this period.
In the Perugia College of Change you will find:
Fortitude and Temperance on six ancient heroes. At the bottom the characters are identified, from left to right, as Lucius Sicinius, Leonidas the Lacedaemonian, Horace Cocles, Publius Scipio Pericles the Athenian and Quintus Concinatus,
Prudence and Justice on six ancient wise men. At the bottom the characters are identified, from left to right, as Fabius Maximus, Socrates, Numa Pompilius, Furius Camillus, Pythagoras and Trajan the Emperor.
The humanist Francesco Maturanzio acted as his advisor. The theme of the cycle is the agreement between pagan wisdom and Christian wisdom.
In recent years he painted The Betrothal of the Virgin and The Combat Between Love and Chastity. The Annunciatta Altarpiece was Perugino's last Florentine work.
He was still in Fontignano when he died of the plague. Like other victims, he was hastily buried in unconsecrated ground, the exact location being currently unknown. The most outstanding student he had was Raphael, in whose early works the influence of Perugino is most notable. Giovanni di Pietro (lo Spagna) was also his student.
