Santa Mustiola
(13th century, now demolished)
St Mustiola was a 3rd century Roman matron who had been martyred at Chiusi for her faith, and who became a patron saint of that city. The church of Santa Mustiola in Perugia belonged to the Abbazia di Santa Mustiola in Chiusi.
The Confraternita di Sant' Andrea della Giustizia, which was founded in 1374, had an altar dedicated to St Andrew in the church. They also owned an adjacent oratory that housed a venerated statue of the Madonna and Child, which they regularly carried in procession. The Franciscans of San Francesco al Prato provided the priests that said Mass at the confraternity’s chapel.
The priests of Santa Mustiola and the confraternity must have been in a difficult position in 1473 when the Perugians failed to return the Virgin’s wedding ring, which Fra Wintero had stolen from the Santa Mustiola in Chiusi. (It is now in the Cappella dell’ Sant’ Anello of the Duomo).
The confraternity merged with the Confraternita di San Bernardino in 1537 and moved to the Oratorio di SS Andrea e Bernardino. Santa Mustiola seems to have been demolished soon after.
Works Removed from the Church
Triptych of Justice (1475-6)
A document that was discovered
relatively recently in the archives of the Confraternita di Sant'
Andrea della Giustizia records that the confraternity commissioned this
altarpiece from Bartolomeo Caporali and Sante di Apollonio.
(It had previously been attributed to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo.) The
altarpiece was originally on the confraternity's Altare di Sant’ Andrea
in Santa Mustiola, and it moved with the brothers in 1537 to the Oratorio di SS Andrea e Bernardino. It was given to the Commune before 1872 and entered the Galleria Nazionale (Room 15/16) in 1895.
One of the side panels of the triptych contains a figure of St Mustiola holding the Virgin’s wedding
ring. This is significant because the altarpiece was commissioned only a short time after
the theft of this relic described above.