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Vacation in Italy: Umbria travel route
home: travel route: Umbria: art

the lands of Perugino

The territory around Lake Trasimeno has very much maintained a dimension of environmental harmony where the sweet hills, the quiet reflection of the lake, the olive groves, vines, oaks, towers, Italian castles and abbeys have woven a subtle web of territorial individuality.
It is this individuality which makes this area a coveted destination for those visitors wishing to spend time close to nature and enjoying peace and tranquillity.
This individuality and harmony was captured by the one of the region's most renowned artists: Pietro Vannucci, known as 'Il Perugino', who contributed heavily to the history of art and literature. In order to fully appreciate the poetic dimension of the convergence of art and nature, it is necessary to follow a lesser known itinerary that leads from Città della Pieve out towards Paciano, Panicale and Fontignano which have works of art by Perugino and members of his school.
It is an itinerary which immerses you in the stunning landscape – the green hills, the lake and the huge open space of Valdichiana on the horizon, and it is this image which was stamped into the mind of the Maestro of Città della Pieve. This itinerary also gives you the opportunity to see the most prominent and outstanding moments of Vannucci’s life and works - just take a look at 'l'Adorazione dei Magi' in the Oratory of Santa Maria dei Bianchi in Città della Pieve and the 'Martirio di San Sebastiano' in Panicale.

the renaissance cycles

In Umbria, it is possible to see a number of masterpieces by some of the greatest Italian painters from 14-1500AD: Pietro Vannucci known as 'Il Perugino', Benozzo Gozzoli, Filippo Lippi, Luca Signorelli and Bernardino di Betto know as 'Pinturicchio'.
The end of the 15th century saw Luca Signorelli (from Cortona) busy decorating the chapel of San Brizio in the Duomo of Orvieto; work that had been started 50 years earlier by Beato Angelico and Benozzo Bozzoli. The result was and still is an art masterpiece.
During the same years, Pietro Perugino, commissioned by the Collegio del Cambio, had made a return to Perugia to work on the frescoes in the Sala delle Udienze (court room). This room was one of those which made up the town’s office for powerful money-changing companies and which between 1491 and 1500 underwent a huge decorative operation.
In these frescoes, Il Perugino succeeded in harmonising classical culture, represented by the Centre-piece of the four cardinal virtues, and Christian culture, expressed in the Allegories of the three theological virtues, and even left a self-portrait which is hung like a painting on the left-hand wall.
Lastly, in Spello in 1501, Bernardino di Betto known as Pinturicchio was enlisted by Troilo Baglioni to decorate the family chapel (also known as 'Cappella Bella' – beautiful chapel) in the high church of Santa Maria.

places of contemporary art

Città di Castello is the host of a collection by its most illustrious citizen: Alberto Burri. The collection was started based upon donations by the artist himself at the Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini and today can be seen in two premises which form part of the Palazzo Albizzini in via Albizzini 1, and at the ex Seccatoi del tabacco (tabaccho drying-rooms) in via Pierucci.
Burri, who was one of the most important personalities on the art scene after the Second World War, left the 50s by abandoning the traditional medium of oil and colour and by choosing materials which become the protagonist of his art.
History of art in the 1900s also left a sign on Perugia. In the first few years of the 19th century, a group of young artists began to explicitly challenge the teaching of the Accademia di Belle Arti and, tired of the suffocating public climate, showed interest in the theories of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the father of Futurism whose echoes, despite being slightly confusing, were arriving in the provinces.
The indisputable leader of the Perugian group was Gerardo Dottori, one of the protagonists of Italian futurism and a founder of 'Aeropittura'. Another interesting and unusual modern art venue is the Villa Fidelia in Spello which has a contemporary art collection and which hosts many engaging temporary exhibitions. In the heart of Trevi, found close to Spoleto, inside the Palazzo Lucarini (1500s), is the Trevi Flash Art Museum of Contemporary Art, which organises temporary, personal or collective exhibitions of the most interesting artists on the Italiana and international art scene.

museums

In Perugia there is the National Gallery of Umbria, which is one of the most important exhibition of the Gothic painting, with masterpieces by Duccio di Boninse? gna, Beato Angelico, Piero della Francesca. The National Archaeologic Museum of Umbria houses a splendid and very rich Etruscan collection.
Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis, one of the greatest figures of Christianity, has the superb Basilica of San Francesco with the world famous Giotto’s frescoes, showing in 28 splendid paintings the life of the Saint; the Pinacoteca Civica and the Cathedral’s Museum. Spoleto has the Gallery of Contemporary Art.
In Gubbio there is the Civic Museum, which holds the famous “Eugubine tables”: seven bronze plates, from the second century B.C. Foligno can offer the tourists the Archaeologic Museum and the Pinacoteca Civica.


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