Alinari photo] [Uffizi Palace, Florence
THE FIESOLE ALTAR-PIECE, 1493
In 1493 Perugino was balloted, so Orsini says, into the municipal council at his native place, Città della Pieve, for May and June, and is said to have served his time there, but in the same year he was painting at Florence, and, according to Mariotti, had a botega in that city and accepted many commissions. To this period belong two notable pictures, one in Florence and the other in Vienna. The face of the Virgin in each picture is identical, and the infant Christ in each is painted from the same model. The picture in the Uffizi was painted for San Domenico in Fiesole, and was the second altar-piece Perugino did for that church, the first, painted in 1488, having disappeared.
It represents the Virgin on a throne bearing the infant Christ on her knees. On one side stands St. Sebastian (to whom reference will be made later on) and on the other, St. John the Baptist. The group stands under the vaulted arching resting on square pillars, of which Perugino was so fond. In the distance is the customary landscape. The picture is signed:
PETRVS PERVSINVS PINXIT AN 1493.
The other work is at Vienna, and bears an inscription denoting the name of the priest who commissioned its execution.
The Blessed Virgin is on a throne in this picture also, but the group is enclosed by high stone walls only open to the sky. On one side stand St. John the Baptist and St. Paul, on the other, St. Jerome and St. Peter. The St. Jerome is the same face as appears in the Albani altar-piece of 1491, and the curious long white beard which he wears, and which hangs in two divisions, will be noticed many times in later works notably at Trevi and Montefalco, and constitutes a mark of Perugino's own handiwork.