Don Baldassare di Antonio di Angelo

Around 1500 Perugino was one of the most admired painters in Italy, and a young man named Raphael was learning in his workshop. This little panel is a leftover of a much bigger thing. It sat in the base of a tall altarpiece Perugino made for the abbey of Vallombrosa in the hills above Florence, and when that altarpiece was later broken up, this portrait was one of the few parts kept. The man is Baldassarre di Angelo, a monk who ran the abbey's affairs the very year the picture was painted. Perugino set his profile against plain black, catching the warmth of the skin and every strand of hair. For a long time people credited the portrait to Raphael himself, until scholars gave it back to the master who had taught him.