Vatican · 500th anniversary of the death of Pietro Perugino

Issue date20 Jun 2023

Total mintage81,500

EU maximum82,500

Editions3

Edge lettering2 ★ × 6, alternately upright/inverted

InscriptionCITTÀ DEL VATICANO / PERUGINO / 1523◦2023 / R

DesignerDaniela Fusco (Annalisa Masini)

mintInstituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma

Issue occasion

The commemorative coin marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Pietro Perugino. The design features his portrait and a detail of his fresco “The Baptism of Christ” in the Sistine Chapel. The design is complemented by the inscriptions “CITTÀ DEL VATICANO” and “PERUGINO” as well as the years “1523◦2023”.

The design

The reverse shows a portrait of Perugino and a detail from his “Baptism of Christ” fresco in the Sistine Chapel. At the upper right, the inscription “CITTÀ DEL VATICANO” appears in a semicircle. At the bottom is the inscription “PERUGINO”, with the dates “1523◦2023” beneath it. The mint mark “R” is visible on the left. The twelve stars of the European flag are depicted on the outer coin ring.

Background on the topic

Pietro Perugino was actually named Pietro Vannucci. He was born around the middle of the 15th century in Città della Pieve and received his artist’s name from Perugia, the center of the region in which he later worked, known as the Umbrian school. He worked, among other places, in Perugia, Florenz and Rom. His painting is associated with the Italian Renaissance. Typical features include clearly structured pictorial spaces, balanced groups of figures, gentle landscapes and architecture constructed according to the principles of perspective. This approach also influenced the young Raffael, who was trained in Perugino’s circle.

In the early 1480s, Pope Sixtus IV had the walls of the Sistine Chapel (Sixtinische Kapelle), named after him, decorated with an extensive fresco cycle. Several painters were summoned to Rom for this purpose, including Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli. The sequences of images juxtapose scenes from the life of Moses with episodes from the life of Christ. In this way, the Christian idea of a connection between the Old and New Testaments is developed in visual form.

The Baptism of Christ depicts the baptism of Jesus by Johannes in the Jordan. At the center, Christ receives the sacrament, while God the Father appears above and the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove. Additional figures and landscape elements expand the biblical scene. Perugino was also involved in other parts of the chapel’s original decoration. One of his best-known surviving works there is the “Delivery of the Keys to Petrus,” whose architecture and central perspective determine the composition.

The choice of the anniversary by the Vatican City State can be explained by the painter’s close connection with a central site of the Vatican. The Sistine Chapel (Sixtinische Kapelle) serves not only as a papal chapel and the site of the conclave, but also preserves an extensive collection of Renaissance art. Perugino’s work forms part of the chapel’s decorative history before Michelangelo’s later work on the ceiling and altarpiece. The anniversary therefore provided an occasion directly connected with the cultural heritage of the issuing state.