Perugino (1450 circa - 1523) 
- Name:
- Pietro Vannucci, known as Perugino
- Dates:
- Città della Pieve, circa 1450 - Fontignano, 1523
- Attivitą:
- painter
- Places:
- Florence; Perugia and Umbria; Rome; Cremona, Venice, Pavia
- Biographical information:
-
Born around 1450 in Umbria, he arrived in Florence in about 1470 and began to frequent the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio. In 1472 he was registered with the title of ‘maestro’ in the Guild of painters, the Compagnia di San Luca.
Having returned to Perugia, he participated in the execution of the Scenes from the Life of Saint Bernardine, eight panels (one of them dated 1473) originating from the oratory of the same name and now in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria. In 1475 he was paid for having painted in the upper room of the Palazzo dei Priori in Perugia (work lost). In 1478 Pope Sixtus IV Della Rovere summoned him to Rome to fresco the Chapel of the Conception in St. Peter’s, which was then lost when the new basilica was built. Perugino was already a renowned and esteemed artist, so much so that in 1480 the Pope himself asked him to direct the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. In the series of Scenes from the Life of Moses and the Life of Christ, painted by Ghirlandaio, Botticelli and Cosimo Rosselli among others, Perugino was thus able to reserve the main scenes for himself: the Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter and the Assumption of the Virgin (the latter was then destroyed when it was replaced by the Last Judgement by Michelangelo).
After this Roman enterprise Perugino continued to move between Florence, Perugia and Rome, working very intensively and interspersing his activity with frequent sojourns in other cities in central Italy. In Florence in 1482 he received the commission for the decoration - never actually executed - of a wall in the Sala dei Settanta (now the Sala dei Gigli) in Palazzo Vecchio. In Perugia, where he was named an honorary citizen in 1485, he was commissioned by the decemvirs to paint the altarpiece for the Palazzo Pubblico (1483), which was not actually delivered until 1495. In Rome, together with Antoniazzo Romano and Piermatteo da Amelia, he created the ephemeral apparatus for the celebrations of the election of Innocent VIII to the papal throne (1484). Before the end of the century he produced a number of masterpieces, such as the Vision of Saint Bernard (Munich, Alte Pinakothek) commissioned in 1489 by Bernardo and Filippo Nasi, and the Albani Torlonia Triptych for Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (1491; Rome, Torlonia collection). In 1489 the Operai of the Duomo of Orvieto entrusted him with the decoration of the Chapel of San Brizio, which was later passed to Signorelli.
Around 1490 he was working in Florence for Lorenzo il Magnifico and, together with other artists, he was engaged in the frescoes of the Villa dello Spedaletto close to Volterra. He was among the judges in the competition for the new facade of the Duomo of Florence, announced by Lorenzo il Magnifico in 1490. Finally in 1493 he came to reside chiefly in Florence, where he married Chiara Fancelli, daughter of the architect Luca, and opened his own workshop. He worked for the Ingesuati friars of San Giusto alle Mura.
Towards the end of the century, when the Republic inspired by the theories of Fra’ Girolamo Savonarola was set up in Florence, Perugino proved to be a perfect interpreter of the new religious feeling, producing works marked by a composed, mystical and solemn sentiment. Availing of the collaboration of a talented workshop, Perugino was able to fulfil numerous commissions: the fresco of the Crucifixion in Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi (circa 1495), the Lament over the Dead Christ for the nuns of Santa Chiara (Florence, Galleria Palatina), and the Last Supper in the refectory of the Convent di Fuligno in Via Faenza.
In 1494 Perugino completed the altarpiece for Sant’Agostino in Cremona. The following year he went to Venice to paint in the Palazzo Ducale (works since lost). Between 1496 and 1499 he worked on the altarpiece for the high altar in San Pietro in Perugia and on that for the Certosa di Pavia, now dismembered (Pavia, Certosa; London, National Gallery). It must have been around the turn of the century that the young Raphael entered the Florentine workshop.
In the interim, Pietro had been called back to Perugia to decorate the Sala del Collegio del Cambio with a complex fresco cycle, one of the most important in central Italy in this period. The room was then inaugurated in 1500. From 1502 on the artist had a permanent workshop in Perugia.
In 1505 he painted The Combat of Love and Chastity (now in the Louvre) for the studiolo of Isabella d’Este in Mantua. However, the marchioness declared herself not overly satisfied with the work. Perugino began to receive criticism, and the esteem he had enjoyed up to a short while before began to dwindle. In Florence he was accused of clumsiness following the completion of the paintings for the four-sided structure designed for the high altar of Santissima Annunziata, which had been begun by Filippino Lippi. In Rome in 1508 Perugino was brusquely dismissed by Pope Julius II as he was frescoing the ceiling of the room in the Vatican later known as the ‘Stanza dell’Incendio di Borgo’. These paintings were then replaced by the frescoes of his former pupil, Raphael.
With his talent by now in decline, and clinging to a style that had lost its vigour and subjects and formulas that had become repetitive, Perugino spent the last years of his long life in Umbria, directing a workshop that nevertheless continued to flourish. In 1524 he died of the plague in Castello di Fontignano while he was frescoing the Crib in the parish church.
informazioni generali - apparati e documentazione
