Pala della Trasfigurazione

By 1517 Perugino was an old master out of step with his moment. The soft, balanced style he had perfected, and taught to the young Raphael, had been overtaken in Florence and Rome by a bolder generation, so he worked on at home in Umbria in the manner he trusted. A Perugian noblewoman, Andreana Signorelli, commissioned this altarpiece for her husband, for a church in the city. Christ floats in a mandorla of light between the prophets Moses and Elijah, while below three apostles reel back from the sight. Behind them stretch the thin trees and pale hills of Umbria, the landscape Perugino returned to again and again.