Quality, Demand, and the Pressures of Reputation: Rethinking Perugino

Quality, Demand, and the Pressures of Reputation: Rethinking PeruginoAuthor(s): Michelle O'MalleySource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 89, No. 4 (Dec., 2007), pp. 674-693Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067356 .

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Quality, Demand, and the Pressures of Reputation: Rethinking Perugino Michelle O'Malley

According to Giorgio Vasari, the Italian Renaissance painter Pietro Perugino had a particularly shocking experience in November 1507. He installed a huge, double-sided altarpiece in SS. Annunziata, the Florentine church of the Servites, and

it was immediately ridiculed by the younger generation of

painters in the city (Fig. 1 ). Perugino was probably about sixty at the time, and the jeering painters were men he may

reasonably have considered to be his junior colleagues. They claimed that the painter had employed in the composition of the Assumption of the Virgin figures that he had previously used in other works. Perugino did not deny this but pointed out that his figures had always before been admired. Further

more, this was not the experience of an afternoon. Vasari

notes that Perugino continued to be harried by insults and attacked in sonnets that circulated in print for some time

after the unveiling of the altarpiece.1

Perugino is not highly regarded today, but by 1507 he had achieved extraordinary fame.2 From the late 1480s to the

early 1500s, numerous critics and prominent patrons hailed

him as the most illustrious painter of his era. His large corpus

encompassed altarpieces, frescoes, and studio pictures of a

limpid beauty, created for a prestigious and diverse clientele

that included Popes Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, and Julius II, Lorenzo de' Medici, Ludovico Sforza, Isabella d'Est?, the

important Chigi family of bankers and prominent governing groups, church leaders, and men of business throughout the

Italian peninsula. At the time that Perugino painted the SS. Annunziata altarpiece, demand for his work was so high that

he was concurrently operating workshops in Florence and

Perugia, and had done so from 1501.3 The story suggests that

something had gone seriously wrong.

The anecdote comes from Vasari's Lives of the Artists, pub lished first in 1550 and then again in a revised version in 1568.

Given that the tale is Vasari's, it is proper to ask how much of it

reports what happened and how much of it serves the structural

demands of the narrative Vasari was writing. Patricia Rubin

makes it clear that Vasari's mission was to recount the develop ment of a style that reached its pinnacle in Michelangelo.4

Perugino's story provided a useful conclusion to the section on

the quattrocento before the final push of the narrative into the

sixteenth century. However, Vasari is not our only source for the

SS. Annunziata incident. In unpublished biographical sketches,

Paolo Giovio alludes to the painter's shame, and at least one

sonnet survives that refers to the altarpiece as "very bad."5 De

spite the attacks, the friars never registered a complaint about

the work, and they were not averse to refusal: only eight years

later, the SS. Annunziata friars were unhappy enough with

Rosso Fiorentino's recently completed fresco of the Assumption

of the Virgin to ask another painter, Andrea del Sarto, to repaint

the work.6 Presumably, therefore, Perugino's characteristic ap

proach to the figures in the altarpiece satisfied the convent's

expectations. All the same, after painting the SS. Annunziata

altarpiece Perugino never received another major Florentine

commission or even another important contract in his native

Perugia. In the sixteen years before his death in 1523 he worked

largely on commissions from clients in the environs of Perugia. The Annunziata story is striking because it highlights ques

tions of reputation, demand, workshop practice, value, and

the production of artistic quality. These are issues central to

understanding the operation of what clearly seems to have

been an aggressive Florentine market, but they are difficult to

assess without data from a variety of sources for an individual

painter. Perugino's career offers the scope to explore funda

mental questions about production and its relation to eco

nomics: a large body of works survive, numerous prices are

known for existing works of art, and other documentation

attests to the painter's personal renown. In addition, a num

ber of specific works have been subject to rigorous art histor

ical examination and detailed scientific analysis, and these

data have illuminated the precise approach Perugino took to

composing and painting altarpieces and other works on

panel and canvas. By considering together the findings of such archival, visual, and technical research, it is possible to

investigate the economic meaning of reputation, to question the connection between production and price, to consider

the strategies painters employed to deal with the demand that resulted from fame, and to query how closely quality, a

factor that has traditionally occupied the heart of the assess

ment of pricing in regard to works of art, is linked to mon

etary value.

Renaissance Pricing Vasari derided Perugino specifically for recycling in the As

sumption side of the SS. Annunziata altarpiece figures that

had appeared in other works.7 This was undoubtedly the

case, but reusing designs was a technique that Perugino had

employed successfully over the course of his long career. It is

arguable that the visual consistency this gave to his work

formed the basis for the fame he enjoyed in the fifteenth

century. The problem for Perugino, as David Franklin has

pointed out, is that by the early sixteenth century the Floren tine standards for evaluating works of art had shifted. Reli

ability of appearance was no longer admirable; instead,

Florentine artists and their clients sought innovation and

invention in a new work of art.8 This was not, however,

Vasari's argument. He claimed dismissively that Perugino

recycled designs in the SS. Annunziata altarpiece from greed or from "not wanting to lose time."9 These two accusations

are particularly interesting, for they underline the painter's attention to economics, or concern with income, and to

workshop practice, or concern with time in manufacture.

Such attention is not surprising: these were two central anx

ieties of painters running businesses. For the SS. Annunziata

altarpiece?among the cheapest, in real terms, of Perugino's



THE PRESSURES OF REPUTATION: RETHINKING PERUGINO 575

1 Pietro Perugino, Assumption of the

Virgin, verso of the SS. Annunziata

altarpiece, 1507, oil on panel, 131 X

85% in. (333 X 218 cm). SS. Annun ziata, Florence (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by Archivio Alinari, Florence)

documented works (an aspect of the altarpiece that will be

discussed in detail below)?these factors took on a vital im

portance. They were also especially key concerns for painters with significant reputations, like Perugino, whose work was in

great demand and whose workshops came under particular

pressure to produce numerous works simultaneously. In may seem odd that questions of income and, thus, time

would be central in these circumstances because in tradi

tional economic theory, demand drives prices up. In the

Renaissance, however, while the level of demand that a

painter enjoyed had a strong impact on the highest amounts

he might earn, it was by no means the only pressure on the

pricing of pictures. Indeed, highly regarded painters did not

consistently command high prices; instead, they took on work

for various fees, some of them very low.10 This is because, as

the Material Renaissance Project has demonstrated, Renais

sance prices were largely determined by cultural factors.11

That is, they were set in regard to intangible, often social

forces that are often difficult to value, rather than in response to objectively priced aspects of production or even in relation

to the force of supply and demand.12 Such an approach to

pricing, practiced throughout Renaissance Italy for goods as

diverse as foodstuffs and luxury objects, means that for a

Renaissance painter, prices were influenced much less by the

materials, number of figures, time, and labor in a work than

they were by, for example, the desirability of working for a



576 ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 2007 VOLUME LXXXIX NUMBER 4

particular client, the need to honor a human relationship, or

the wish to perform a pious act. Clients conceived of prices in

terms of concepts, often hazy, about the value of works made

by particular painters and in terms of ideas about spending that related to their own social status, especially the aim to

assert honor and appear magnificent.15 As a result of this system, painters went about manufactur

ing works of art in an atmosphere in which the income from a work was largely divorced from the costs of its production. This raises the crucial question of how painters went about

producing works of art, especially those for which the prices agreed on were low.

The range of prices Perugino was paid for works is shown in

the table in the Appendix, which lists the sixteen of Perugino's works on panel and canvas for which the contract or another

form of documentation with price information survives. The

listed works were commissioned between 1488 and 1517. The

works, mostly made for clients in Perugia or its environs, mainly date from the last third of the painter's life; Perugino died in

1523, about the age of seventy-five. Except for the picture on

canvas painted for Isabella d'Est?, the tabulated commissions

are all altarpieces, painted on wood. The table, in chronological

order, notes the subject, the site of the work, its client, the date

of the document concerning the commission, and information

on delivery. The latter demonstrates that while Perugino com

monly agreed to produce work quickly, he rarely honored these

arrangements, at least in the cases for which delivery dates are

documented. The table also establishes that the works produced for very low fees were undertaken at the same time as those that

carried high fees; it seems that the cheaper works were not under

taken in a period of few commissions or of low earnings generally.

Documentary prices are tabulated, but the column of ad

justed prices shows a workable comparative price. This adjust ment is necessary because some of Perugino's contracts record

a single sum to be paid both for painting the image and for

supplying the carpentry of the altarpiece. In order to compare

these works with others for which the price was given only for

painting the image, it is necessary to exclude the costs of the carved woodwork. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries,

woodwork could cost as little as 7 percent of the whole price of a commission or as much as nearly 50 percent, but the average

cost was about 18 percent of the total cost of painting, wood

work, and gilding.14 Therefore, to adjust the prices that Pe

rugino earned for painting the Madonna di Loreto altarpiece (table, no. 13), the Citt? della Pieve Madonna and Child with

Saints (no. 14), the Corciano Assumption (no. 15), and the

Perugian Transfiguration (no. 16), 18 percent has been sub tracted from the total fee paid for each altarpiece. For the

Vallombrosa altarpiece (no. 5), the division of costs between the

production of the painting and that of the woodwork is sug

gested by direct documentary evidence.

The prices of the sixteen tabulated works ranged from under

50 florins to as much as 500 florins, but a quick glance at the

columns noting size and the notional prices earned per square

meter demonstrates that these values were by no means consis

tently linked to size. They thus had only a slight relation to the cost of the materials, time, and labor that might have been

anticipated for a work.15 If the prices had been largely deter mined by these factors, the prices per square meter would be

the same, or at least similar, and the documented prices would

gradually rise in relation to size. Instead, the range of income

per square meter is remarkably wide. These "unit prices" are

rough estimates, calculated by dividing the price by the size of the panel (s) painted. It is important to recognize that prices

were not set in such a crude manner in the Renaissance. None

theless, the calculation is useful because it provides a direct

means for comparing the gross income per work.

In this context, it is worth underlining the fact that the prices for most commissioned works of art in the Renaissance were

determined before a work was begun.16 It is, perhaps, easy to

slide from discussion of a work's price to the idea that a work was

sold for a particular amount. When a commission was under

discussion, though, there was no work to be sold; it was still an

abstract idea at the time that the painter negotiated with his client for its price. The lack of an object to evaluate may have

heightened the importance of the social concerns brought to bear on the price. In any case, it is clear that a price might be set

before a decision was made on the number of figures to be

painted, which could be determined after a contract was signed.17

The order of these decisions is crucial. It means that a

painter may have made resolutions about the approach to

take to figure design and the arrangement of a composition

pragmatically, in the light of the price that had been agreed for an altarpiece or fresco, rather than vice versa. Painters

responding to high demand, who faced considerable pres sure to turn out a large volume of work quickly, may have

particularly exploited this possibility, inherent in the very process of commissioning.

Production and Cost

Certainly, painters held in high esteem, whose work was widely sought after, were by necessity concerned with issues of produc

tivity. They had to be, for they juggled the production of many works simultaneously. Between the beginning of 1495 and the end of 1500, for example, the Perugino workshop was engaged in manufacturing several large works on panel, including the

altarpiece of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ for the Floren

tine convent of S. Chiara (dated 1495); the Decemviri altarpiece (App., table, no. 2, originally commissioned in 1483, recommis

sioned on March 6, 1495, probably delivered that year: 100

florins, Fig. 2) ; the S. Pietro altarpiece (no. 3, commissioned on

March 8, 1495, delivered in late 1499: 500 florins, Fig. 3); the Vallombrosa altarpiece (no. 5, commissioned in December

1497, completed in 1500: 180 florins, Fig. 4); the altarpiece for S. Maria Nuova, Fano (no. 1, commissioned in 1488, dated 1497: 300 florins) ; the altarpiece for S. Maria delle Grazie, Senigallia (painted 1497-1500); the Certosa di Pavia altarpiece (commis sioned after October 1496, probably largely painted between 1499 and 1500); the Resurrection altarpiece for the altar of Ber nardino di Giovanni da Orvieto in S. Francesco al Prato (no. 6, commissioned on March 2,1499: 50 florins); and the altarpiece of the Marriage of the Virgin for the Perugian Confraternity of St.

Joseph (commissioned in 1499 but not painted until after

1500). At the same time, Perugino and his assistants completed the large fresco of the Crucifixion at the Florentine Cestello

(April 1496) and began the frescoes in the Perugian Collegio del Cambio (commissioned January 1496, completed 1500). The workshop also found time to produce smaller pieces, in

cluding gonfabne, or processional panels, for the Perugian Con

fraternities of S. Bernardino (commissioned before September



THE PRESSURES OF REPUTATION: RETHINKING PERUGINO ?)hJhJ

1496), S. Maria Novella (no. 4, Madonna d?lia Consolazione,

painted between 1496 and 1498: 60 florins), and S. Agostino (commissioned in 1500 and completed that year), and a large

painted curtain or banner (drapellone) for the Confraternity of S.

Francesco (paid for in 1499).18 This means that in the single year of 1499, for example, Perugino was not only working on six

major altarpieces, he was also completing the frescoes of the

Collegio del Cambio and producing smaller, incidental pieces. He continued to follow this demanding schedule into the early sixteenth century.

Perugino's workload was high, and he perfected an ideal

technique for increasing production: he reused designs. Reem

ploying cartoons was an innovative technique, originally con

ceived in the Verrocchio studio in the 1470s. While many late

fifteenth-century Florentine painters reused designs, Perugino maximized the practice.19 He recycled cartoons to repeat fig ures in disparate works, reversed them to make "new" figures,

reproportioned existing designs for individual figures and fig urai groups, and restaged whole compositions. As Rudolf Hiller

von Gaertringen has argued, for Perugino this was a creative

process.20 Furthermore, by rearranging existing drawings and

cartoons, the painter could keep complete control of the design

process and, at the same time, plan new compositions quickly. He could then delegate the making of new cartoons that en

larged or reduced the already designed figures and allocate the

making of underdrawings, which could be created relatively

independent of his supervision.

Recycling cartoons constituted, as they say in the business

world, a multiple use of assets. In classic economic theory, the

process would have made it possible for Perugino to turn out

a significant number of works quickly and, simultaneously, to

minimize expenditure. This would have given him the scope either to increase his income from a particular work or to

reduce its cost. More precisely, the order of the decision

making process, in which price was settled before the design was developed, would have, in theory, permitted Perugino to

make pragmatic decisions about the time he would spend on

the design phase of a commission. What this might have

meant in practice may be considered in regard to a "family" of paintings whose figures originated in the composition of

the Ascension made for the main panel of the S. Pietro altar

piece and whose prices survive.21 The "parent" altarpiece, commissioned from Perugino in 1495 for S. Pietro, the

church of the Benedictine convent in Perugia, was delivered

in 1499 (App., no. 3, Fig. 3). At 500 florins, it cost much more than most altarpieces made by Renaissance painters. While

the Benedictines paid a great deal, they also obtained an

altarpiece that was especially striking. Each figure depicts an

individual. Each is graceful yet weighty, psychologically en

gaged with the action, and physically robust. The spatial relations are satisfying; the color harmonies particularly so

phisticated. It is not surprising that every element of this

design remained active in the workshop.

Indeed, even before the altarpiece left the shop, elements of

it were used in the Vallombrosa altarpiece (App., no. 5, Fig. 4)

and the Collegio del Cambio frescoes, and parts later appeared in other works. Hiller von Gaertringen has taken precise mea

surements and tracings to track these designs. It seems from the

evidence of reuse that individual cartoons were made for each

figure of the altarpiece. In the Vallombrosa altarpiece, commis

2 Perugino, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, from the

Decemviri altarpiece, 1495, oil on panel, 76 X 65 in. (193 X

165 cm). Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome (artwork in the public domain; photograph ? Musei Vaticani)

sioned in 1497 and delivered in 1500, the figures of each pair of the S. Pietro music-making angels appear in swapped places beside the ascending figure of the Virgin, but otherwise the cartoons were reproduced exactly, with the exception of the

cartoon of the angel playing a harp, which was reversed.22 On

the day that the contract was redacted, the patrons of the

altarpiece made notes about the subject matter planned for the

commissioned work and specified precisely that eight music

making angels should be included. However, in the notarized

scripta drawn up about the subject eight months later, the simple notation that "many angels" should be painted replaced the

reference to a specific number of celestial beings. This change

probably originated with the painter, who made other, small

amendments to the friars' notes that gave him leeway for deci

sion making at the design stage.23 It is worth considering that

the change to the record means that Perugino had already

planned to reuse the elegant groupings of angels. Moreover,

they were not the only images repeated in the work. The con

tract stipulates, and the scripta repeats, that the figure of Dio

Padre should appear above the Virgin. In the Vallombrosa altar

piece, Perugino adopted without alteration the cartoon of God

the Father employed in the S. Pietro altarpiece. In fact, Pe

rugino used this design three times in the course of fewer than

five years, for it also appears in the fresco of prophets for the

Collegio del Cambio, a work that was, like the S. Pietro altar

piece, in the process of production when the Vallombrosa altar

piece was commissioned and painted (Fig. 5). Furthermore, the

design of the Vallombrosa Saint Michael is closely echoed in the

Collegio del Cambio figure of Lucio Sinicio (Fig. 6). Hiller von



578 ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 2007 VOLUME I.XXXIX NUMBER 4

3 Perugino, Ascension of Christ, God the

Father in Glory, from the S. Pietro

altarpiece, 1496-1499, oil painted on

panel transposed to canvas, 128 X

104% in. and 51 X 104% in. (325 X 265 cm and 130 X 265 cm). Mus?e des Beaux-Arts, Lyons (artwork in the

public domain; photograph ? Alain Basset, provided by the Mus?e des

Beaux-Arts de Lyon)

Gaertringen argues that these figures were made with the subtle

realigning of the same cartoon, but infrared reflectography shows that the figure of Saint Michael was sensitively drawn and

carefully worked up freehand. This suggests that the two figures

were produced with reference to the same drawing, which itself

seems to refer to Donatello's sculpture of Saint George, dis

played on the exterior of Orsanmichele.24 These multiple reuses and cross-references give the impression that the




4 Perugino, Assumption of the Virgin with Saints and Angels, from the

Vallombrosa altarpiece, 1500, oil on

panel, 163% X 96% in. (415 X 246 cm). Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by Index / Tosi, Florence)

painter was stretched to the limits of his time but that he

nevertheless creatively recombined successful designs to sat

isfy his clients' wishes.

There is also a sense that the S. Pietro cartoons had a

powerful and lasting presence in Perugino's workshop. These

are the designs that the painter turned to in 1505, when he

took over the SS. Annunziata commission for a double-sided

altarpiece that Filippino Lippi had begun in 1503 (App., no.

12, Fig. 1). On the side of the altarpiece untouched by Filippino, Perugino painted a composition of the Assumption of the Virgin in which most of the figures of the angels and the

Apostles, with a few omissions and substitutions, were created

with the S. Pietro cartoons. The altarpiece was completed in

1507. Around the same time, the Camaldolese in a convent



5 Perugino, God the Father with Angels and Prophets, 1496-1500, fresco, 90 X

145V2 in. (229 X 370 cm). Palazzo dei Priori, Sala del Udienza, Perugia (artwork in the public domain;

photograph provided by Archivio Storico Fotogr?fico, Comune di

Perugia)

6 Perugino, Strength and Temperance with Lucio Sinicio, Le?nidas, Orazio

Coclite, Scipione, Pericles, and Cincin

nati, 1496-1500, fresco, 114V4 X

157V2 in. (291 X 400 cm). Palazzo dei Priori, Sala del Udienza, Perugia (artwork in the public domain;

photograph provided by Index,

Florence)

just outside Sansepolcro commissioned an altarpiece that

reproduced the S. Pietro Ascension exactly (Fig. 7). The dat

ing of the commission is not precise, but as the Sansepolcro

altarpiece was almost certainly commissioned before 1509, it

may have been ordered after the Annunziata altarpiece was

installed and thus despite its reception in Florence.25

Each of these works was cheaper than the altarpiece made

for S. Pietro. The Vallombrosa altarpiece cost 180 florins.

The Sansepolcro Ascension probably cost about 200 florins or less. The 1503 contract between the Servi tes and Filippino Lippi and the subsequent document of 1505 concerning the Servites' payment to Perugino show that the Assumption side

of the Annunziata altarpiece was valued at about 100 florins

or less, when the painting of the side panels is taken into

consideration.26 These were middling prices for the painter, and the obvious explanation is that Perugino reduced the

time he gave to the design of these altarpieces because the

prices agreed for them were lower than that paid for the S.

Pietro altarpiece.27 Put another way, the painter could "af

ford" to agree to a lower price in each case because he was

well aware that he had designs for which the cartoons were

already prepared. This is underlined by the fact that when the

prices of the Vallombrosa and Annunziata altarpieces are

considered in terms of a "price per square meter," it is clear

that Perugino earned particularly low amounts for them in

real terms.28 The Vallombrosa altarpiece was painted for



7 Perugino, Ascension of Christ, from

the Sansepolcro altarpiece, 1505-10, oil on panel, 131 X 104% in. (333 X 266 cm). Cathedral of Sansepolcro (artwork in the public domain;

photograph provided by Index, Florence)


about 16 florins per square meter and the SS. Annunziata for

fewer than 13 florins per square meter. This is in sharp distinction to the S. Pietro altarpiece, for which the painter earned nearly 40 florins per square meter. In each case, the

painter may have accepted a contract for a relatively low fee

because he realized that he could design the works quickly and thus get them speedily into production.

Controlling Time

Balancing cost and time was undoubtedly a common issue for

Perugino. Like other painters whose work was in demand, he

had to monitor carefully the time spent on a work because of

the many tasks that a master painter was required to perform. This is suggested by a group of contracts drawn up in the late

fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. They reveal that certain

experienced patrons and a group of admired and busy painters,

including Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi, Luca Signo relli, Pinturricchio, and Raphael, as well as Perugino, were ne

gotiating, among other things, the precise input a master

painter would devote to a new work.29 Common practice may be

summed up by a phrase in the contract of 1502 between Pintu

ricchio and Cardinal Piccolomini for the frescoes of the cardi

nal's library in the Sienese Duomo: Pinturicchio agreed "to

make with his own hand all the designs both on paper and on

the wall, paint the heads in fresco, do the retouching necessary

in secco and bring the whole work to his usual quality of finish."30

The passage demonstrates that master painters were largely

managers, designing new works, painting their most important sections (the figures), assigning secondary aspects to assistants,

and then, when the work was nearly completed, devoting

enough attention to give the altarpiece or fresco a high degree of finish. Indeed, it may have been the amount of Perugino's time demanded by the Fabrica of Orvieto in its contract of 1489

with the painter that caused him ultimately to drop that com

mission. Probably he was simply unable to be present at the site

whenever any painting was undertaken on the fresco, as the

contract stipulated.31

The idea that Perugino attempted to reduce the time spent




planning new works is supported by the fact that he seems

rarely to have produced prospectus drawings for the works

for which a contract survives, even though it was common

practice after the middle of the fifteenth century for painters to do so.32 Making a contract drawing meant dedicating time

to designing a work before a commission was in hand. More

over, the drawing had to be a relatively fair copy, carefully prepared for presentation to a client. It may have been a

tenet of Perugino's practice that he and his clients simply discussed subject matter before agreeing formally to the brief written descriptions of the subjects to be painted that appear in the surviving contracts. He would then have designed the

chosen iconography as the first step in the process of pro duction in the workshop. For most commissions, particularly from the mid-1490s, this would have been done with the

consideration of existing cartoons and previously worked-up

designs before any drawings were created de novo.33

The attempt to control production time can also be seen in

an aspect of Perugino's technique. Perugino was among the

earliest Italian artists to adopt the oil medium for painterly effects, floating colors in glazes over base tones.34 This was a

time-consuming activity, not least because oil-based pigments do not dry quickly. To hasten the process, Perugino com

monly employed a siccative, or drying agent, in his colors, a

technique that came from painters north of the Alps who

worked in oil in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century; Perugino was probably among the pioneers of the practice in

Italy.35 Along with avoiding the making of contract drawings and reusing cartoons to plan and design compositions, em

ploying a siccative gave Perugino a way to keep careful con

trol of time through the course of producing a new altar

piece. Nonetheless, as the table indicates, Perugino was often

late in the delivery of works. This evidence of the importance of time becomes compli

cated in regard to costs, however, when the prices of the altar

pieces related to the S. Pietro composition are compared with

the prices other painters earned for contemporary altarpieces. These prices suggest that while the reuse of cartoons could

lower costs, reducing expenditure on production was probably not the only force that induced Perugino to employ the tech

nique in these cases. This is because the prices of the Vallom

brossa, SS. Annunziata, and Sansepolcro altarpieces were mid

dling only in relation to the prices Perugino earned for works. In

terms of the prices paid generally for altarpieces in central Italy in the period, their prices were high: most altarpieces of similar

size brought other artists less.36 In other words, it is unlikely that

Perugino needed to save on the production costs of these altar

pieces. Despite their low value in relation to the S. Pietro altar

piece, he still must have been making a reasonable income from

them if other painters made an income from lower prices for

similar work. Therefore, another reason for redeploying car

toons in these works was almost certainly the pace of production

required by the painter's level of demand. Reuse allowed Pe

rugino to attain a high rate of output. Equally important, as

Bette Talvacchia has noted, the technique helped him to main

tain a high degree of control of the workshop and, thus, to turn

out a characteristic and consistent product.37 The figures and

atmosphere of Perugino's created world, famously described to

the duke of Milan as "angelic" and "sweet," were a hallmark of

his business and a foundation for his reputation.38 This pro

vided a powerful motive for returning over and over again to

successful concetti both for individual characters and for the

arrangement of figures. These motives may seem contradictory, but it is not unusual

for actions to be overdetermined, or taken for a variety of

reasons.59 Here, my argument is that as long as nominal prices were relatively high, the monetary and production benefits of

reusing cartoons and compositional designs may have had equal force with the painter. On the one hand, the technique reduced

production expenditure and thus gave the painter scope for

negotiating prices. On the other hand, the process supplied a method for turning out a large number of commissions while

controlling assistants and producing the very consistency that

kept reputation, and thus demand, high.

Inexpensive Works and Production

When circumstances induced the painter to accept a low

price for a work, the economic benefit of reuse may have

come sharply to the fore. Indeed, given what appears to have

been a pragmatic approach to designing altarpieces for

which he received relatively high fees, it might be expected that Perugino would be rigorously practical in planning and

painting the altarpieces that he agreed to produce for low

sums. For these altarpieces, the costs of production and

materials represented a higher proportion of the fee than

they did in more expensive works; consequently, the overall

income from such works would almost certainly have been

fairly meager. In these cases, the design techniques that were

probably initially developed to increase productivity in order to turn out a large number of big, important, and relatively

well-paying works should have been exploited methodically for their intrinsic ability to keep costs low. This would have made it possible for the business to take on the projects that were surprisingly inexpensive by any standards.

In the years between 1495 and 1507, Perugino undertook at least four commissions that paid particularly low nominal

fees: 65 florins or less (App., nos. 4, 6, 7, 13). Three of these

were very low in real terms, that is, in terms of their "price per

square meter," and it might be expected that they repre sented a drain on the business (nos. 6, 7, 13). All three had

Perugian clients. The Insurrection altarpiece (no. 6, Fig. 8) was

commissioned by the merchant Bernardino di Giovanni da

Orvieto for his family's chapel in S. Francesco al Prato; the

Family of the Virgin altarpiece (no. 7, Fig. 9) was ordered by Angelo di Tommaso Conti for his chapel in S. Maria degli Angeli; and the Madonna di Loreto altarpiece (no. 13, Fig. 10) was made for the heirs of the carpenter Giovanni di Matteo di

Giorgio Schiavone for a family chapel in S. Maria dei Servi.40 Another two altarpieces whose nominal prices were in the

middle range in Perugino's corpus had very low value in real

terms: the double-sided altarpieces for the churches of S.

Francesco al Monte, in Perugia (no. 8, Figs. 11, 12), and SS.

Annunziata, in Florence (no. 12, Fig. 1), the latter of which

proved so problematic for Perugino's reputation. These two

works demonstrate that some altarpieces that seem mid

priced might actually have had a low value in relation to

Perugino's earnings in general. These may well have pre sented particular problems for the business. Given the min

imal real value of these five works, it might be anticipated that a rote process would be used for their design, that a brusque



THE PRESSURES OF REPUTATION: RETHINKING PERUGINO ?g3

8 Perugino, Resurrection of Christ, 1499-1500, oil on panel, 91% X 65 in. (233 X 165 cm). Biblioteca Papale, Vatican (artwork in the public domain; photograph ? Musei Vaticani)

approach would be taken to their painting, and that cheap materials would be employed. Instead, the evidence reveals a

more balanced practice that combined pragmatic techniques with more time-consuming methods.

In the Madonna di Loreto, nominally the cheapest of these

works, the main figures were designed by means of cartoons.

Infrared reflectography, which illuminates underdrawing, shows that the outlines were transferred with the very close

marks typical of Perugino, and this, in itself, indicates care

taken with the work. In addition, the contours of the impor tant elements of the design were incised into the imprimitura, or under layer of paint. Conservators at the National Gallery,

London, have traced the underdrawings of the angels and

superimposed one on the other to verify that the angels were

fashioned from a single cartoon, reversed to obtain symmet rical celestial figures.41 The pricked design portrayed the

angels holding lilies depicted with upright stalks. Reflectog raphy reveals, though, that after the cartoon was transferred

the shape of the stems was reconsidered and they were re

drawn in freehand, presumably so that they would better

relate formally to the wings and curved draperies of the

angels (Fig. 13). Given this change and the standard Perugi

nesque type of the main figures, it seems likely that the cartoons used for the altarpiece already existed in the shop.42

9 Perugino, Family of the Virgin, ca. 1502, oil on panel, 80 X 70

in. (203 X 178 cm). Mus?e des Beaux-Arts, Marseilles (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by the Mus?e des

Beaux-Arts, Marseille)

The change also implies that Perugino carefully reviewed the

panel before painting began. That is, despite the very low

value of this altarpiece, the painter followed a procedure that

might be expected to be routine only for high-cost works.

No scientific work has been done on the underdrawing of

the Family of the Virgin (Fig. 9), which might yield similar conclusions. However, the underdrawing, made with a fluid

medium, is visible through much of the paint layer. Occa

sionally a corrected line can be made out, but it is difficult to

tell if it is in connection with a pounced design. The figures conform strongly to Perugino's types, and it is reasonable to

suppose that much of the design relied on the reuse of

cartoons already in the shop. Nonetheless, the figures are

placed within an architectural vault designed specifically to

organize the space and draw attention to the hieratic quali ties of the subject. In addition, the Virgin sits on a throne that

is more elaborate than that of the more expensive Fano

altarpiece (App., no. 1), for example, and involves signifi

cant, if austere, architectural elaboration. These elements of

the design received attention even though the altarpiece was

among the least expensive of the documented works.

As the Resurrection is an unusual subject in Perugino's

corpus, it is possible that the figures of the sleeping soldiers

were designed specifically for the S. Francesco al Prato altar

piece, for, unlike the saints of the Family of the Virgin, the

figures could less readily be adapted from existing designs.

Indeed, original work may also have been done even for the

secondary figures of the angels, for rudimentary tests show

that the angels, while similar, may not be identical. Despite




10 Perugino, Madonna di Loreto, ca. 1507, oil on panel, 74!/* X 62 in.

(189.1 X 157.5 cm). National Gallery, London (artwork in the public domain; photograph ? The National

Gallery, London)

the low price of this commission, they may have been pro

duced with different cartoons or drawn directly onto the

imprimitura. Such painstaking work can be traced in the al

tarpiece for S. Francesco al Monte. Here, two elements are

noteworthy. First, tracings indicate that separate drawings were made for the subsidiary figures of the angels of the

Coronation (Fig. 12).4S Second, although the iconography requires grouped Apostles to gaze upward, the ready-made

designs for the S. Pietro altarpiece of these figures were not

employed here. New groupings?undoubtedly made from

existing designs but not drawn from the S. Pietro cartoons?

were developed for the Coronation, and an original composi tion was devised for the Crucifixion on its verso. The Crucifix ion side is badly abraded and faded, but the spatial harmony

of the figurai arrangement is notable; it influenced Raphael's

design of the Mond Crucifixion (Fig. 14).44 The SS. Annunziata altarpiece did not occasion an innova

tive design. As Vasari's story underlines, most of the figures of

the Assumption side of the altarpiece reproduce the cartoons

made for the S. Pietro altarpiece (compare Figs. 1, 3). This

quick approach to creating the side of the altarpiece not

already designed by Filippino Lippi may have been directly induced by the fact that in terms of its "cost per square

meter," the Annunziata altarpiece was the second least ex

pensive documented work that Perugino produced.45 As the

subject of this side of the altarpiece had been undecided when Filippino was commissioned, it may be that Perugino influenced the choice of its iconography precisely because he

was aware that the cartoons would fit the format.46 Alterna

tively, the Servites may have gone to him with the subject, and

Perugino may have seen that recycling the ten-year-old car

toons from the earlier, admired altarpiece was a perfect

design solution to his clients' needs. In either case, Perugino

may have agreed to undertake the commission for the mul

tifigured, labor-intensive subject for a relatively low fee pre

cisely because a body of reusable cartoons already existed.

This means that Vasari was probably right when he accused

Perugino of wanting to save time on the work: Perugino was

making relatively little from the commission, and designing the work quickly saved him time and, therefore, production costs. Given the low real value of the SS. Annunziata altar

piece, it is questionable whether such a decision constituted




greed, as Vasari claimed, or was simply a sensible approach taken by an experienced master, managing a business. It is

important to underline that while time was not spent on

design, labor was invested in the painting of the work. Both

here and in the S. Francesco al Monte Coronation is found the

depiction of complicated shot-silk fabrics and drapery elabo

rated with delicate gold patterns. Painting such details took

care, and they probably received attention because of the

relatively high nominal cost of these altarpieces.

Perugino, admired as a colorist and an innovative painter, often depicted images with superb passages of painting, and a

relatively significant amount of production time in the develop ment of many of his pictures must have been taken up with the

application of pigments.47 He produced flesh tones, for exam

ple, by a Netherlandish method in which layers of translucent

color were floated over the neutral ground of panels.48 This

took time, but it gave to Perugino's faces a striking luminosity. In

addition, elements of painting found throughout the works,

such as the diaphanous scarves wound around the head of the

Virgin and the shoulders of saints and Apostles, the fine fabrics

of the draperies of earthbound as well as of angelic figures, the

atmospheric landscapes and the filigreelike goldwork that fre

quently decorates the hems and necklines of robes, are all

details that required attention, skill, and time. Such techniques of painting were central components of Perugino's practice.

They contributed directly to his reputation and, probably for this reason, when the workshop turned to inexpensive works

they were not abandoned but modified. Perugino struck a bal

ance between time-saving techniques and practices that re

quired more sustained attention.

This is partly demonstrated by X-rays, which can indicate the

density of the paint layer, suggest the nature of the brushwork,

and show aspects of technique. They make it clear, for example, that the flesh tones in the cheaper works were depicted with

Perugino's characteristic oil technique. Perugino's general ap

proach to painting flesh involved the application of only a few

paint layers.49 In expensive works, such as the S. Pietro altar

piece, the painting is careful and refined; the modeling is subtle

and the faces are lively. The faces of the Madonna di Loreto have

very few layers, and the modeling, a time-consuming element, is

rudimentary.50 Nonetheless, the faster technique of mixing

ruddy pigments with lead white to produce a "flesh color" was

not employed in these cheaper works. Lead white appears only in the highlights, which give the faces energy. In the Madonna di

Loreto, these highlights were each created with a single, swift

brushstroke applied with confidence (Fig. 15). While assistants

probably handled the greater part of these inexpensive works, it

is possible that Perugino himself painted aspects of the Madonna di Loreto, including parts of the heads of Saint Jerome and the Christ Child (Fig. 16) and aspects of the atmospheric back

ground, which are the most subtle elements of the work.51 He

may also have applied the highlights to the faces of the Ma donna and saints. Such work of refinement and completion was

typically undertaken by busy painters to give pictures finish?the

finish expected of a master workshop.52

In the Resurrection altarpiece, it seems that similar painting

techniques but possibly greater time was invested than in the

Madonna di Loreto, despite its minimal price. The Resurrection

panel has suffered drastically from buckling, abrasions, and

serious losses of paint, and the technical work was largely

11 Perugino, Crucifixion, recto of the S. Francesco al Monte

altarpiece, ca. 1504, tempera on panel, 94V? X 71 in. (240 X

180 cm). Galleria Nazionale deH'Umbria, Perugia (artwork in

the public domain; photograph provided by the

Soprintendenza B.A.P.P.S.A.E. deH'Umbria, Perugia)

devoted to addressing these problems.53 In the X-rays, how

ever, it can be seen that the technique of built-up oil glazes was used for the flesh tones.54 In addition, care was clearly taken over the work, for the faces of the figures appear to be

more sensitively modeled than those of the Madonna di Loreto.

Faces get more attention from viewers, so it is not surpris

ing that the painter invested time in them. Little elaboration

appears, though, in the painting of the drapery in the nom

inally inexpensive works, marking it as an area where time

was probably made up. In the Madonna di Loreto, the choice of

the figures to be represented was surely related to the client's

family, but it allowed for the depiction of robes that could be

quickly yet convincingly painted with little detail and broad brushwork. This factor may have contributed to Perugino's

acceptance of the commission.

Time-saving techniques are also evident in the Resurrection

altarpiece. Here, the Roman soldiers wear armor that is sim

ple and almost geometric in shape. While it is sensitively painted in harmonizing tones, it is mostly depicted as colored rather than metallic, probably because metallic surfaces re

quired the laborious reproduction of reflections. Further

more, the armor lacks the decorative variety of the suit worn,

for example, by the figure of Saint Michael in the more costly Vallombrosa panel (compare Figs. 4, 8). In addition, the




12 Perugino, Coronation of the Virgin, verso of the S. Francesco al Monte

altarpiece, ca. 1504, tempera on panel, 94V2 X 71 in. (240 X 180 cm). Galleria Nazionale deH'Umbria,

Perugia (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by the

Soprintendenza B.A.P.P.S.A.E.

deirUmbria, Perugia)

modeling of the figures of the Resurrection, like that of the saints of the Madonna di Loreto, is not well developed, which

gives the figures an abstract quality not found in the more

expensive altarpieces. When it came to materials, the less expensive works

evinced few costly pigments. Those employed were placed

strategically and treated with care to give the whole work the

illusion of greater intrinsic quality than it actually contained.

A cross section of pigment from the robe of the Virgin in the Madonna di Loreto indicates that it is painted only with azurite,

but a particularly high grade of the color.55 While this was a

blue much cheaper than ultramarine, azurite ranked among

the most expensive pigments available.56 Moreover, here it

was glazed with a fine layer of red lake, itself a relatively expensive pigment (Fig. 17).57 The lake served to give the blue a purplish hue, which made the robe look as if it were

painted with ultramarine. In Saintjerome's mantle, the costly red lake was used again, painted over the cheaper red ver

milion to give depth to the robe and hint at a much greater use of the finer color. The Resurrection altarpiece exhibits a

similar approach to the use of pigments. Cross sections of

pigment show that Perugino employed costly ultramarine

blue in the altarpiece, but only sparingly, over azurite, and

that he again brushed glazes of red lake over cheaper ruddy

pigments, such as cinnabar and brown earth.58 Glazing one

color over another was not an uncommon technique, but its

appearance in these altarpieces suggests an attention to detail

that the very low prices might contradict.

In addition, gold was used sparingly but to good effect in these works. In the Madonna di Loreto, the Virgin's robe was

decorated with sensitive passages of mordant gilding, applied in a fine pattern designed to give the drapery shape and




13 Perugino, Madonna di Loreto, infrared reflectography detail

showing the drawing of the upright stem of the lily held by the angel on the right (artwork in the public domain; photograph

provided by the Science Department, National Gallery, London)

volume.59 A trace of the gilding is visible in the cross section

of the robe (Fig. 17). In the Family of the Virgin, the graceful gold outline of Saint Anne's veil also works structurally, in

this case, to frame the Virgin. Gold does not appear on the

drapery of other figures, and this distinguishes the approach from that taken in the nominally more expensive S.

Francesco al Monte and SS. Annunziata altarpieces. The inexpensive altarpieces under consideration here have

suffered from a variety of losses and interventions and it is

important to note that despite the fact that they received

relatively little attention in their creation, when they left the

workshop they undoubtedly looked more subtle and more

detailed than they do today. This is because, despite their low

profit potential, the inexpensive altarpieces were painted with techniques that required care and thought. While none

of the works has the quality of some of the more expensive

altarpieces, the design and painting techniques commonly

employed in the workshop were adapted in their making

14 Raphael, The Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary, Saints, and

Angels (the Mond Crucifixion), ca. 1502-3, oil on poplar, 11114 X 65% in. (283.3 X 167.3 cm), National Gallery,

London (artwork in the public domain; photograph ? The

National Gallery, London)

rather than forsaken, and care was taken both in their design and in the use of materials to give the impression of greater

expense. In sum, each altarpiece bore the hallmarks of a

characteristic work by Perugino.

Reputation, Social Norms, and Value

Despite Perugino's status, in the cases of the inexpensive

altarpieces it is clear that neither his reputation nor the

demand for his work was a primary factor in negotiating

price. Instead, other, less tangible elements steered the pric

ing of the pictures. It is impossible to know precisely what

these were, but it is possible to speculate on some of the

factors that influenced the fees.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the connections among sought after painters, eminent clients, and high prices, the low-priced Resurrection and the Family of the Virgin altarpieces were under




15 Perugino, Madonna di Loreto, detail of the face of the

Madonna (artwork in the public domain; photograph

provided by the Science Department, National Gallery, London)

16 Perugino, Madonna di Loreto, detail of the face of the Christ

Child (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by the Science Department, National Gallery, London)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HJjj^^^^^HR^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^J Madonna ^|HH^^^^^H^^^^^^^^^^^^H|^^H|^^^HS|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I cross from the blue the ^^^^^^HHHjHj^^^flB^^^HF^j^^^^^H||^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H robe the Madonna, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B????^?^?^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M coarse

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H There are a trace lake ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H glaze the surface a ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H are ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^m the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H by the ^^^^^IHH?HHHHHHIH^^^^^^^^liHHHHIIHHHIlll^^^^^HHIIH?I Gallery,

taken for Perugian individuals with high social status.60 Bernar

dino di Giovanni da Orvieto, for whom the Resurrection was

painted, was a merchant and landowner who matriculated in

the Perugian Collegio della Mercanzia, and Angelo di Tommaso

Conti, who commissioned the Family of the Virgin, belonged to one of the wealthiest clans of the city.61 The importance of these

individuals combined with Perugino's standing as an artist

might have worked to drive up the prices of the altarpieces, but

another factor seems to have overridden the force of reputation on both sides of the bargaining table here. That factor may have been competition: in this case, the competition between Pe

rugino and Pinturicchio, another Umbrian painter. Like Pe

rugino, Pinturicchio was a superb painter-manager who had

established a significant reputation throughout the Italian pen

insula. Pinturicchio had returned to Perugia from Rome in 1495 to undertake a prestigious commission for the church of S.

Maria degli Angeli (or dei Fossi). In an altarpiece made for the

high altar, Pinturicchio painted a graceful and detailed compo sition of the Madonna and Child (Fig. 18). The altarpiece was

installed by 1500 and it was widely admired. As a result, Pintu

ricchio remained in Perugia, accepting commissions from Pe

rugian individuals and families for devotional works based on

the figures of his altarpiece.62 In contrast, most of the commissions that Perugino under

took between 1495 and the early years of the sixteenth century were for corporate groups. He may have been eager to obtain

the business of important individual patrons in Perugia. In any

case, the commissions from Bernardino di Giovanni da Orvieto,

undertaken in 1499, and Angelo di Tommaso Conti, awarded in

1500, gave Perugino such an opportunity. Moreover, the loca

tions of these finished altarpieces were probably influential in

Perugino's acceptance of the commissions. The Resurrection was

to be installed in S. Francesco al Prato, the church in which

many of the important clans of Perugia had their tombs, and

this may have made it valuable for attracting other significant

clients.65 The Family of the Virgin was to be installed in S. Maria

degli Angeli, the location of Pinturicchio's altarpiece. It is not

surprising that Perugino produced for the site aru original com

position that was once among his most praised works.64 These

clients, therefore, seem to have benefited from the painter's own interest in the long-term value of his commissions. They must themselves, however, have approached the bargaining




18 Bernardino di Betto, called

Pinturicchio, Madonna and Child with

Saints (S. Maria degli Angeli altarpiece), ca. 1495-96, tempera on

panel, 194 X 129 in. (493 X 328 cm). Galler?a Nazionale deH'Umbria,

Perugia (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by the Soprintendenza B.A.P.P.S.A.E.

deirUmbria, Perugia)

table with the intention of negotiating a low price, either be

cause of their own financial situations or because they were

aware of the painter's interests.

Perugino probably undertook the Madonna di Loreto for an

other motive. In this case, while no documented connections

have come to light, a working relationship may be posited between the painter and the deceased local carpenter, Giovanni

di Matteo di Giorgio Schiavone; such a connection may have

induced the painter to keep his fee low.65 Perugino is not

mentioned in Schiavone's will, which provides for the making of

a painted work, but the commission was awarded soon after

Schiavone died, and it may be that the carpenter himself had

arranged with the famous painter to produce an altarpiece for

his chapel. Indeed, very early in his career, Perugino had

painted another altarpiece that hung in the church, probably for the Baglioni, who were among the most powerful families in

Perugia. Their chapel may have been located next to that of

Schiavone.66 The opportunity to produce a new altarpiece for

the same site as an older work may also have contributed to the

painter's acceptance of the commission.

At S. Francesco al Monte, Perugino inherited a wooden

altarpiece structure that was already fabricated and to which

was attached, on one side, a large wooden crucifix.67 This

altarpiece may have been built in response to a bequest to the




friars of 1453, which provided for a structure with the possibility of being painted on both sides.68 The sum given for the work

fifty years before Perugino was hired may have dictated the

highest amount that the friars could pay, but that does not

explain why Perugino accepted the commission at such a rela

tively low rate. While he may have taken on the work for pious

reasons, which painters sometimes did, there is no obvious

argument for it in this case, and the decision remains a mys

tery.69 We know more about the circumstances of the SS. Annun

ziata altarpiece. The commission may have been attractive to

Perugino because it was for a large and impressive altarpiece that would grace the high altar of one of Florence's most

important churches. Although the outcome of the commis

sion proved disastrous for the painter, at its inception it

offered Perugino an opportunity to furbish his status and

increase his reputation by creating "the grandest ensemble

of its kind in Florence in this entire period" at a time when he was producing large and impressive works only for

clients outside the city.70 This suggests a practical reason for

taking on the work, but Perugino may also have accepted the work for pious reasons or for sentimental ones: his ear

liest important commission had come from the Servites in

Perugia.71 Something made the commission attractive to the

painter because he is likely to have known from the begin ning that he could not improve on the price. He almost

certainly had to accept the remainder of the amount that the

Servites had agreed on with Filippino Lippi. The 200 florins allotted for the completed altarpiece already represented an

increase in the amount that the friars had originally intended to pay and was probably the most that they could afford.72

Another, more general reason for Perugino's acceptance of low-priced commissions in the years just before and after

1500 may have been related to Raphael. Pinturicchio pro vided the direct competition of a mature painter, but Ra

phael excited attention from the beginning of his career,

and anxiety about competition from the young painter may

have given Perugino a compelling motivation to reduce his 73

prices.

Demand, Quality, and Price At least until the first decade of the sixteenth century, Perugino's reputation was well established throughout Italy, and the demand for his work was considerable. This means

that he was in a position to negotiate very high prices for his

work. Often he did, for commissions that have not been

discussed here. More than just occasionally, though, he dis

regarded this ability to command high prices. Some of the financial decisions discussed here seem to have been made

with an eye toward sustaining the business by attracting new

work and varying the client base, presumably to increase

demand. Not all choices were pragmatic, however; other

price decisions may have been driven by cultural needs.

Probably the painter's practical and social requirements worked together at the negotiating table, tempered by the interests of the client. Of course, decisions about the

price of each altarpiece were not made in isolation; altar

pieces that generated significant income allowed the painter

to take on, whatever the reason, works that made much less

clear profit. While the prudent operation of business and the force of

Italian social life permitted the painter to set aside one of the

central benefits of reputation in the process of pricing, the

obligations of reputation were disregarded at the painter's

peril in the procedures of production. Nothing illuminates this more than Vasari's claim that Perugino lost his reputa tion with the installation of the SS. Annunziata altarpiece.

The story unquestionably demonstrates that reputation was

an asset that had to be maintained actively. It was at risk with

every new work, regardless of its price. Reputation and the

quality produced in manufacture were crucially and inextri

cably linked. The importance of this connection is under

lined by the time and skill devoted to the cheapest works. This attention was necessary because the condition, finish,

and stylistic coherence of works of art reflected directly on

the master. They were linked to his reputation no matter

what their monetary cost.

This knowledge must have been central to the business

decisions made by painters. But demand put considerable

pressure on quality. While it seems that maintaining quality and satisfying demand were not problematic for Perugino in the 1480s and early 1490s, the force of the market strongly affected the appearance of the works of art he produced in

the years between 1495 and the early years of the sixteenth

century. It squeezed quality toward a midpoint. That is, de

mand tended to equalize the approach Perugino took to the

production of works of middle and low prices. Altarpieces nominally in the midrange for the painter but expensive in

the terms of the period received less attention than might have been anticipated, while works that were particularly

inexpensive received more. For example, the Vallombrosa

altarpiece, a relatively costly work nominally but less than

average in terms of its "price per square meter," was designed with a combination of existing cartoons, drawings made for

other works, and a few newly worked-out figures. 4

It was

painted with care but not given passages that required sus

tained attention. For cheaper altarpieces, such as the Ma

donna di Loreto, the procedures of quick design were even

more rigorously applied. Yet even with these, certain aspects were adapted to guarantee a modicum of quality. The trans

ferred drawings were reviewed and adjusted, and although

painted with very few layers of pigment and largely rudimen

tary modeling, care was taken with color glazes and gilding to

suggest a greater use of expensive materials than were actu

ally employed. Assistants may have painted the major part of

each of the very inexpensive works, but the finish of these

altarpieces ensured that they appeared as characteristic prod ucts of Perugino's business.

5 These works demonstrate that

the connection between price and production practice was

remarkably loose. Indeed, with the exception of Perugino's works with very high unit prices, such as the Decemviri and S. Pietro altarpieces (App., nos. 2, 3, Figs. 2, 3), quality cannot

be linked directly to price. This is because a relaxed associa

tion between economics and artistic production was vital. At

least until 1507, it preserved the most important feature of

the business in this period: the painter's reputation.



Appendix Chronological table of works by Perugino with surviving contracts giving documented prices

Altarpieces with two subjects are double-sided. The "adjusted price" is the notional price of the painting(s) only, excluding the cost of the woodwork.76 The size includes the main panel and lunette or top panel but excludes predella and side panels, except for the S. Pietro and S. Agostino altarpieces. This is because for some altarpieces it is unclear whether or not

a predella was included and for others it is unclear which sets of surviving panels constitute the correct predella for the altarpiece.77

No. Subject Site Contract Delivery Delivery

date Support Woodwork deadline date Price Adjusted Size Price

(florins) Price (m2) in m2 Client

1 Madonna and Child

with Saints

2 Madonna and Child

with Saints

3 Ascension

4 Madonna della

Consolazione

5 Assumption

6 Resurrection

7 Family of the Virgin

8 Crucifixion and

Coronation

9 Crucifixion

10 Baptism and Nativity 11 Battle of Cupid and

Venus

12 Deposition and

Assumption

(Perugino painted IV? sides)89

13 Madonna di Loreto

14 Madonna and Child

with Saints 15 Assumption 16 Transfiguration

S. Maria Nuova, Fano

Palazzo Comunale

S. Pietro, Perugia

S. Maria Novella,

Perugia

Badia, Vallombrosa

S. Francesco al Prato,

Perugia

S. Maria degli Angeli,

Perugia S. Francesco al Monte,

Perugia

S. Agostino, Siena

S. Agostino, Perugia

Palazzo Gonzaga,

Mantua

SS. Annunziata,

Florence

S. Maria dei Servi,

Perugia

S. Gervasio, Citt? della

Pieve

S. Maria, Corciano

S. Maria dei Servi,

Perugia

148878 Wood Client

1483 Wood

149579

149580 Wood

149681 Wood

1497 149882

149985

150084

150285

150286

150287 150388

150590

Wood

Wood

Wood

Wood

Wood

Wood

Canvas

Wood

150791 Wood

150792 Wood

151295 Wood

151794 Wood

Client 4 mos.

6 mos.

Client 30 mos.

(2.5 years)

Client 5 mos.

10 mos.

Client 2 mos.

Client ?

Client 7 mos.

Client 12 mos.

Client ?

Painter 6 mos.

Client ?

1497

Not recorded

1499 (approx 56 mos.)

1498

1500 (32 mos.)

Not recorded

Not recorded

Not recorded

1506 (46 mos.)

1523 1505 (28

mos.)

1507 (27 mos.)

Painter Approx. 7 mos.

Painter 5 mos.

300 300 9.38 31.9 Durante di Giovanni

Vianuzzi

100 100 3.96 25.2 Perugian Comune:

Decemviri

500 500 12.70 39.3 Benedictines

60 60 2.37 25.3 Confraternity

300 180 11.32 15.9 Vallombrosans

50 50 3.84 13 Bernardino di Giovanni da

Orvieto

65 65 7.66 8.4 Angelo di Tommaso Conti

120 120 8.64 13.8 Franciscans

200 200 11.56 17.3 Cristofano Chigi

500 500 24.68 20.25 Augustinians 100 100 3.05 32.7 Isabella d' Este

200

Painter Approx. 4 mos. Not recorded 47

Painter 12 mos. 1514? 130

Not recorded 100

Not recorded 100

200 15.6 12.8 Servites

38 2.49 15.2 Heirs of Giovanni di Matteo

di Giorgio Schiavone

107 5.28 20.2 Canons of San Gervaso

82 3.84 21.3 Church and Comune

82 5.36 15.2 Adriana Signorelli




Michelle O'Malley is reader in art history and the director of research,

School of Humanities, University of Sussex. She has published numerous

articles on issues of production, value, and exchange concerning Renais

sance painting and has written The Business of Art: Contracts and

the Commissioning Process in Renaissance Italy (2005) [Art

History Department, School of Humanities, University of Sussex, Brigh ton BN1 9RQ U.K., [email protected]].

Notes The initial research for this article was supported by the Material Renaissance

Project (University of Sussex, 2000-2004), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (U.K.) and the Getty Grant Program. Aspects of the mate rial were delivered in papers to the Renaissance Seminar at the National

Gallery, London, in December 2004 and the seminar "Value, Production,

Consumption and the Issue of Quality in the Renaissance" at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in June 2006; I am grateful to the participants for their comments and ideas. Thanks also to Liz James, Flora Dennis, James Thomson, and Christopher Poke, who kindly and critically read various versions of the text, and to the Research Fund of the School of Humanities,

University of Sussex, which generously provided a contribution to the costs of the reproductions. I am particularly grateful to the anonymous readers for The Art Bulletin for their insightful comments and suggestions.

1. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de' pi? eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi (Florence: G. C. Santoni, 1878), vol. 3, 585-87. For

questions on the importance of the incident, see Jonathan K. Nelson, "La disgrazia di Pietro: L'importanza della pala della Santissima An nunziata nelle Vita del Perugino del Vasari," in Pietro Vannucci: II Pe

rugino, ed. Laura Teza (Perugia: Volumnia, 2004), 70; for a consideration of its meaning, see David Franklin, Painting in Renaissance Florence 1500 1550 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), chap. 1. On the altarpiece, see Nelson, "The High Altar-piece of SS. Annunziata in Florence: History, Form and Function," Burlington Magazine 139 (1997): 84-94.

2. The standard works on Perugino and his life are Fiorenzo Canuti, //

Perugino, 2 vols. (Siena: La Diana, 1931); and Pietro Scarpellini, Pe

rugino (Milan: Federico Motta, 1984); see also Vittoria Garibaldi and Francesco Federico Mancini, eds., Perugino: Il divin pittore (Milan: Sil vana, 2004). On Perugino's fame, see Nelson, "La disgrazia," 67. The demand for Perugino's work may have been partly created by his will

ingness to travel for commissions; conversely, the travel may reflect the demand. See Michael Bury, review of Perugino: L 'opera completa, by P.

Scarpellini, Burlington Magazine 128 (1986): 750.

3. Perugino ran the Florentine workshop from 1487 to 1511; see A. Vic tor Coonin, "New Documents Concerning Perugino's Workshop in

Florence," Burlington Magazine 141 (1999): 100-104. He operated the

Perugian workshop from 1501 to 1513; see Canutj, Perugino, vol. 2, 302-5; for an argument that Perugino worked earlier in the city, see Francesco Federico Mancini, "Considerazioni sulla bottega umbra del

Perugino," in Teza, Perugino, 329-34.

4. See Patricia Lee Rubin, Giorgio Vasari: Art and History (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1995).

5. For Giovio, see Paola Barocchi, Scritti darte del Cinquecento, vol. 1 (Mi lan: R. Ricciardi, 1971), 19-20; for reference to the sonnet calling the

altarpiece "molto male," see Nelson, "La disgrazia," 70.

6. The fresco was, however, never repainted. See David Franklin, Rosso in

Italy: The Italian Career of Rosso Florentino (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 20.

7. On Vasari and his own reuse of designs, see Alessandro Nova, "Salviati, Vasari and the Re-use of Drawings in Their Working Practice," Master

Drawings SO (1992): 83-108.

8. Franklin, Renaissance Florence, chap. 1.

9. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 3, 586-87: "per avarizia o per non perder tempo." 10. See Michelle O'Malley, The Business of Art (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2005), 99-130.

11. Michelle O'Malley and Evelyn Welch, eds., The Material Renaissance

(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007).

12. On the importance of social networks in economic decision making, see Mark Granovetter, "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness," American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985): 481-510; and

idem, "Problems of Explanation in Economic Sociology," in Networks and

Organizations: Structure, Form, and Action, ed. Nitin Nohria and Robert G. Eccles (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1992), 25-56. On the cen tral role of intangible factors in pricing works of art, see Neil De Marchi and Hans J. Van Miegroet, "Pricing Invention: 'Originals,' 'Copies' and Their Relative Value in 17th-Century Netherlandish Art Markets," in Eco nomics of the Arts, ed. V. A. Ginsburgh and P. M. Menger (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1996), 27-70; and De Marchi and Van Miegroet, "Ingenuity, Pref erences and the Pricing of Pictures: The Smith-Reynolds Connection," in Economic Engagements with Art, ed. De Marchi and Craufurd D. W. Goodwin

(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), 379-412. For these issues in reference to Perugino and Renaissance painting, see Michelle O'Malley, "Perugino and the Contingency of Value," in O'Malley and Welch, The

Material Renaissance, 106-30.

13. See Guido Guerzoni, "Libertas, Magnificentia, Splendor: The Classic

Origins of Italian Renaissance Lifestyles," in De Marchi and Goodwin, Economic Engagements, 356.

14. See O'Malley, Business of Art, 38-45.

15. These issues are discussed in detail in O'Malley, "Perugino and Contingency." 16. See O'Malley, Business of Art, 120-27.

17. See ibid., 135-36.

18. See Canuti, Perugino, vol. 2, for the Decemviri altarpiece: 175, S. Pietro:

176-77, S. Bernardino: 169, S. Maria Novella: 184-87, S. Francesco,

altarpiece and curtain: 187-88; Cestello: 134-35, 164, Certosa: 188-89,

Collegio del Cambio: 189-93. For the Vallombrosa altarpiece, see Christa Gardner von Teuffel, "The Contract for Perugino's 'Assump tion of the Virgin' at Vallombrosa," Burlington Magazine 137 (1995): 311-12; and for the Fano commission, see F. Battistelli, "Notizie e documenti sull'attivit? del Perugino a Fano," Antichit? Viva 13 (1974): 65-68. See also Marilyn Bradshaw, "Pietro Perugino: An Annotated

Chronicle," in Pietro Perugino, Master of the Italian Renaissance, ed. J. A. Becherer (Grand Rapids: Rizzoli International, 1997).

19. On Verrocchio, see Patricia Lee Rubin and Alison Wright, Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s (London: National Gallery Publications, 1999), 93-97, 150-51; on the reuse of designs by other painters, see Lisa Venturini, "Mod elli fortunati e produzione di serie," in Maestri e botteghe, ed. Mina Gregori, Antonio Paolucci, and Cristina Acidini Luchinat (Florence: Silvana, 1992), 147-64; and Megan Holmes, "Copying Practices and Marketing Strategies in a Fifteenth-Century Florentine Painter's Workshop," in The Politics of Influence: Artistic Exchange in Renaissance Italy, ed. Stephen J. Campbell and

Stephen J. Milner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 38-74.

20. Rudolf Freiherr Hiller von Gaertringen, Raffaels Lernerfahrungen in der Werkstatt

Peruginos: Kartonverwendung und Motiv?bernahme im Wandel (Berlin: Deutscher

Kunstverlag, 1999), 146-91; idem, "L'uso ed il reuso dei cartoni nell'opera del Perugino: La ripetizione della formula perfetta," in L'Ascensione di Cristo del

Perugino, ed. Stefano Casciu (Arezzo: Silvana, 1998), 53-69; idem, "L'uso del cartone nell'opera di Perugino," in Garibaldi and Mancini, Perugino, 155-65; and idem, "Uso e riuso del cartone nell'opera del Perugino: L'arte fra vita

contemplativa e produttiva," in Teza, Perugino, 335-50.

21. On the altarpiece, see Christa Gardner von Teuffel, "La pala d'altare

maggiore di Perugino per San Pietro a Perugia: Struttura, collocazione e programma," in Teza, Perugino, 351-71.

22. Hiller von Gaertringen, Werkstatt Peruginos, 110-11; "L'uso ed il reuso"; and "L'uso del cartone."

23. See Gardner von Teuffell, "Vallombrosa," 307-12; on discussions of

subject matter, see O'Malley, Business of Art, 172-82.

24. See Hiller von Gaertringen, "L'arte fra vita," 163; and Roberto Bellucci and Cecilia Frosini, "The Myth of Cartoon Re-use in Perugino's Under

drawing: Technical Investigations," in The Painting Technique of Pietro Vannucci Called il Perugino, ed, Brunetto Giovanni Brunetti, Claudio

Seccaroni, and Antonio Sgamelotti (Florence: Nardini, 2004), 72.

25. On the date, cost, and patron of the altarpiece, see David Franklin, "II

patroncino della pala del Perugino per 1'altar maggiore dell'Abbazia di

Sansepolcro," in Casciu, L'Ascensione di Cristo, 43-51.

26. For the prices, see Gardner von Teuffel, "Vallombrosa," 311-12; Frank

lin, "II patroncino," 44; and Canuti, Perugino, vol. 2, 246, respectively.

27. The design of the Madonna and Standing Child conceived for the Decemviri

altarpiece was also highly reused in the few years between its creation and the first few years of the sixteenth century. See Hiller von Gaertringen, Werkstatt

Peruginos, 112-13. Unfortunately, the prices of only two of the works are

known, and the order of their creation is not securely documented.

28. The calculations are rough because the size notations are based on sur

viving panels, some of which have been altered. In addition, some of the altarpieces may have included a predella, or additional smaller

panels, not noted here except for the S. Pietro and S. Agostino altar

pieces; see the notes to the Appendix.

29. See Michelle O'Malley, "Late Fifteenth- and Early Sixteenth-Century Painters' Contracts and the Stipulated Use of the Painter's Hand," in With and Without the Medici, ed. Eckart Marchand and Alison Wright (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate Press, 1998), 155-78.

30. Gaetano Milanesi, Documenti per la storia dell'arte senese, 3 vols. (Siena: Onorato Porri, 1854-56; reprint, Utrecht: Davaco, 1969), vol. 3, 10.

31. See Canuti, Perugino, 139.

32. On contract drawings in the period, see Francis Ames-Lewis, Drawing in

Early Renaissance Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981); and Francis Ames-Lewis and J. Wright, Drawings in the Italian Renaissance

Workshop (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983); on their com mon use after about 1450, see O'Malley, Business of Art, 197. Among Perugino's altarpieces for which a contract survives, drawings are re




corded only for the Resurrection and the Family of the Virgin, both un common subjects in Perugino's work.

33. On the originality of the work before 1492, see Scarpellini, Perugino, 33.

34. See Ashok Roy, "Perugino's Ce?osa di Pavia Altarpiece. New Technical

Perspectives," in Brunetti et al., Painting Technique, 18.

35. Marika Spring, "Perugino's Painting Materials: Analysis and Context within Sixteenth-Century Easel Painting," 21-24, and Claudio Seccaroni et al., "Four Anomalous Pigments in Perugino's Palette: Statistics, Con

tent, Hypotheses," 36-38, both in Brunetti et al., Painting Technique.

36. O'Malley, Business of Art, 138-39.

37. This is in distinction to the way Raphael drew out and built on the individ ual skills of his assistants when planning a work; see Bette Talvacchia, "Ra

phael's Workshop and the Development of a Managerial Style," in The

Cambridge Companion to Raphael, ed. Marcia B. Hall (Cambridge: Cam

bridge University Press, 2005), 167-85. On Perugino's use of cartoons par ticularly to achieve consistency, see Sylvia Ferino, "A Master-Painter and

His Pupils: Pietro Perugino and His Umbrian Workshop," Oxford Art Jour nal 2 (1979): 13; and Hiller von Gaertringen, Werkstatt Peruginos, 156. See also Jeryldene Wood, 'Young Raphael and the Practice of Painting in Re naissance Italy," in Hall, Cambridge Companion to Raphael, 25.

38. See Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 26. The document of about 1490 reports: "El Perusino Maestro singulare: et maxime in muro: le sue cose hano aria angelica, et molto dolce."

39. See Peter Gay, Freud for Historians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).

40. The fourth work was the Madonna della Consolazione, which, while low

priced in nominal terms, was among the more expensive of the re corded altarpieces in real terms, or the "price per square meter."

41. On the techniques showing design transfer and painting, see Carol Plazzotta et al., "Perugino's Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Francis for S.

Maria dei Servi in Perugia," National Gallery Technical Bulletin 27 (2006): 79 85.1 am very grateful to the Science Department of the National Gallery, Lon

don, for allowing me to use these images, created by Rachel Billinge.

42. Ibid., 81.

43. Bellucci and Frosini, "The Myth of Cartoon Re-use," 72-^73.

44. See Tom Henry and Carol Plazzotta, "Raphael: From Urbino to Rome," in

Raphael: From Urbino to Rome, by Hugo Chapman, Henry, and Plazzotta (Lon don: National Gallery, 2004), 27; and Plazzotta, catalog entry, in ibid., 120-24.

45. When the side panels are included in the size calculation, the price in

square meters drops to 10.2 florins. For a detailed discussion of the

altarpiece, see Nelson, "SS. Annunziata," 84-94.

46. On the intervention of painters in decision making about subject mat

ter, see O'Malley, Business of Art, 169-82, 191-95. '

47. See, for example, the reflections in the armor of Saint George in the

altarpiece in the Albani Torlonia Collection, Rome, and the silvery, almost translucent scales of Tobias's fish in the Certosa altarpiece in the National Gallery, London.

48. On this technique, see Henry and Plazzotta, "Raphael," 26-27.

49. Plazzotta et al., "Perugino's Madonna and Child," 87.

50. Ibid., 79, 83.

51. Ibid., 87.

52. On the input of master painters in about 1500, see O'Malley, "Stipu lated Use of the Painter's Hand," 155-78.

53. Francesco Buranelli, ed., Il Perugino del Papa: La pala della Resurrezione; Storia di un restauro (Milan: Skira, 2004), 37-39.

54. Ulderico Santamar?a et al., "Le indagine scientifiche durante il

restauro," in Buranelli, La pala della Resurrezione, 86-87.


56. On the cost of blue pigments, see Jo Kirby, "The Price of Quality: Factors

Influencing the Cost of Pigments during the Renaissance," in Revaluing Renaissance Art, ed. G. Neher and R. Shepherd (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2000), 22-25; on comparative costs, see O'Malley, Business of Art, 68.

57. On the cost of reds, see Kirby, "Cost of Pigments," 26; on the manufac ture of lakes, see Jo Kirby, Marika Spring, and Catherine Higgitt, "The

Technology of Red Lake Pigment Manufacture: Study of the Dyestuff Substrate," National Gallery Technical Bulletin 26 (2005): 71-88.

58. Santamar?a et al., "Le indagine scientifiche," 86-87.


60. On the connection between status and high prices, see O'Malley, "Pe

rugino and Contingency." 61. See Federica Moscatello, "La committenza," in Buranelli, Resurrezione, 37-38;

and Sarah Rubin Blanskei, "Population, Wealth and Patronage in Medieval and Renaissance Perugia," Journal of Interdisdplinary History 9 (1979): 609-12.

62. On the rivalry and Pinturicchio's work in Perugia, see Pietro Scarpel lini and Maria Rita Silvestrelli, Pintoricchio (Milan: Federico Motta, 2004), 207-14. I am grateful to Donal Cooper for this reference.

63. On the church, see Donal Cooper, "Fransiscan Choir Enclosures and the Function of Double-Sided Altarpieces in Pre-Tridentine Umbria,"

fournal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 44 (2001): 13-18.

64. Scarpellini, Perugino, 106.

65. On Schiavone, see Plazzotta et al., "Perugino's Madonna and Child," 72.

66. Ibid., 80.

67. This is noted in the contract; see Canuti, Perugino, vol. 2, 237.

68. Cooper, "Double-Sided Altarpieces," 40-41.

69. On prices related to piety, see O'Malley, Business of Art, 113.

70. Franklin, Renaissance Florence, 8.

71. It was for an Adoration of the Magi, now in the Galleria Nazionale del l'Umbria. See Garibaldi and Mancini, Perugino, 194-95.

72. The contract that survives between the friars and Filippino is a second

agreement, raising the price of the work, presumably on the argument of

Filippino. See Canuti, Perugino, vol. 2, 243; and Nelson, "SS. Annunziata."

73. On Raphael's early career, see Chapman et al., Raphael: From Urbino to

Rome, Donal Cooper, "Raphael's Altarpieces in S. Francesco al Prato,

Perugia: Patronage, Setting and Function," Burlington Magazine 143

(2001): 554-61; and Tom Henry, "Raphael's Altar-piece Patrons in Citt? di Castello," Burlington Magazine 144 (2002): 268-78.

74. The average "price per square meter" (the total of all the sums, di vided by 16) is 20.5 florins per meter; the median (the middle point of the list of prices from lowest to highest) is just under that, at 18.75.

75. More expensive works, not studied here, stand outside this leveling approach. While the evidence survives for only a small portion of the commissions Pe

rugino undertook, the quality of the altarpieces painted in this period for

prices that were very high in nominal as well as in real terms suggest that they received the sustained attention of the painter. While the S. Agostino altar

piece may seem to belie this, as it was nominally very expensive yet has pas sages of mediocre painting, its quality is undoubtedly due to its long period of

painting, from 1502 until after the painter's death. See Vittoria Garibaldi, cata

log entry, "Pala di Sant'Agostino," 292-94, and Christa Gardner von Teuffel,

"Carpenteria e machine d'altare: Per la storia della riconstruzione delle pale di San Pietro e di Sant'Agostino a Perugia," 151-53, both in Garibaldi and

Mancini, Perugino. 76. The price of altarpiece carpentry varied widely in the period, but con

sidering that an average cost was about 18 percent of the expenditure for painting, woodwork, and gilding combined, 18 percent has been subtracted from those fees that covered the supply of the whole altar

piece (painting, woodwork, and gilding). This offers a notional price paid for the painting of the panels alone and allows these prices to be

compared with those for which Perugino was paid only for the paint ing. See O'Malley, Business of Art, 32-35, 40-43.

77. The measurement of the S. Pietro altarpiece includes the main panel, lunette,

predella, and saints in tondos. The measurement of the S. Agostino altarpiece is based on the largest panel that survives for each section of the altarpiece.

To calculate one side I have used the present measurements of the panels of the Adoration of the Shepherds, Piet?, Archangel Gabriel (multiplied by 2), S.

Girolamo, and Mary Magdalene (multiplied by 2), Adoration of the Magi (multiplied by 2), and Saint Monica (multiplied by 4). The total sum has

been multiplied by two to obtain the approximate size of the whole painted area of the altarpiece. See the reconstruction of the altarpiece by Gardner von

Teuffel, "Carpenteria e macchine d'altare," 141-53.

78. For the documents, see Battistelli, "Notizie e documenti," 65-68.

79. See Canuti, Perugino, 171-75.

80. See ibid., 176-83.

81. See ibid., 184-86.

82. See Gardner von Teuffel, "Vallombrosa," 307-12.

83. See Canuti, Perugino, 187-88.

84. See ibid., 197-98.

85. See ibid., 237.

86. See ibid., 239-41.

87. See ibid., 270-78.

88. See ibid., 208-37; for the contract, see 212-13.

89. The altarpiece was begun by Filippino Lippi in 1503, who completed approximately half of the Deposition side before he died, and the work was taken over by Perugino.

90. Perugino's contract for the SS. Annunziata altarpiece does not survive, but a document in the convent's books of debits and credits notes the price that he would receive and the sum that related to the work Filippino had

completed on the Deposition panel. See Canuti, Perugino, 241-51.

91. See ibid., 254-56.

92. See ibid., 259-60.

93. See ibid., 257-59.

94. See ibid., 269.



Quality, Demand, and the Pressures of Reputation: Rethinking Perugino

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