Portrait of Francesco delle Opere

Perugino signed and dated this on the back in July 1494, and the timing matters. Florence was falling under the spell of the friar Girolamo Savonarola, who preached repentance and warned the city that judgment was near. The sitter, a gem-cutter named Francesco delle Opere, holds a small scroll bearing two Latin words, Timete Deum, fear God. That was Savonarola's refrain, and by carrying it the man quietly declares which side he is on. Months later a French army marched through, the Medici were driven out, and the friar effectively ran the city. Perugino keeps the man calm against an open landscape, hands resting on a ledge, the paper held out toward us like a piece of advice.