Retable de Corciano

By 1513 Perugino was out of fashion in Rome. The city had turned to younger painters, above all his own former pupil Raphael, and the aging master spent these years working the churches of his native Umbria. This altarpiece was one of them. It shows the Virgin rising in a double almond of light, angels playing instruments around her, while below the apostles look up and only John the Evangelist kneels. Perugino built it partly from drawings he already had, reusing angels and figures he had worked out decades earlier. It was made for the parish church of Santa Maria in the hill town of Corciano, and more than 500 years later it still hangs on the altar it was painted for.