Madonna and Child with Saints John the Evangelist and Augustine

The Roncadelli, a wealthy Cremona family, ordered this altarpiece in 1493, and Perugino painted it the next year not in Cremona but in his busy Florence workshop, then had it shipped north. He signed and dated it in Latin right on the Virgin's throne, 1494. This was the decade when Perugino was among the most sought-after painters in Italy, running studios in two cities and only recently done frescoing the walls of the Sistine Chapel. The panel has mostly stayed in the church of Sant'Agostino ever since, apart from a spell in France, where it was taken in 1797 during the Napoleonic wars. It came back in 1815 and still hangs where the Roncadelli meant it to.