Umbrian Art and Artifacts

in Germany

Berlin, Staatliche Museen

Predella Panel of the Last Supper (1500)

The inscriptions on this panel record that Berardino di ser Angelo commissioned the associated altarpiece in 1500 for his family chapel in Sant’ Agostino, Perugia.  By the 18th century, this family had acquired the surname "Tezi" and the altarpiece is known as the Tezi Altarpiece.   The main panel was traditionally attributed to the workshop of Perugino, but its recent restoration revealed its quality and it is now attributed to Perugino himself.  The predella panel however is probably a workshop production.

The altarpiece remained in its original location until 1653, when it was moved and subsequently dismembered.

  • The main panel was transferred to the Galleria Nazionale, Perugia (Room 22) in 1863.

  • The predella was probably stolen during the French occupation of Perugia in 1797.  It turned up in a private collection in Frankfurt in 1833, when it was sold to the museum.  

Adoration of the Magi (1508)

Abbot Eusebio Ancaiani commissioned this documented altarpiece from Giovanni di Pietro (Lo Spagna) for the high altar of San Pietro in Valle, ferentillo, near Spoleto.  Abbot Decio Ancaiani moved it to the chapel next to his palace in Spoleto (see Walk I) in 1733.  The family took it to Rome in 1825 and sold it to the art gallery of Berlin in 1833. 

Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut

Double-sided altarpiece (1333)

The altarpiece by Meo da Siena, which is signed and dated, was painted for the high altar of San Pietro, Perugia "in the time of Abbot Ugolino".  This was Ugolino di Nuccio da Montevibiano, who was abbot in the period 1330-57.

  • One side depicts the Madonna and Child enthroned with angels, flanked by saints whose relics the monastery possessed.  The donor, Abbot Ugolino is portrayed in his white benedictine habit, portrayed kneeling at the foot of the throne . 

  • The other side depicts Christ enthroned, flanked by the twelve Apostles. 

The altarpiece was probably removed from the high altar in 1436.  Its two sides, which were separated in the 18th century, remained at San Pietro until the 1830s.  One of them is illustrated in the institute's website.

Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen

Grave goods from Castel San Mariano (ca. 570 - 530 BC)

 
 Reconstruction of the carpentum (ca. 570 BC) that was buried in a princely tomb at Castel San Mariano.

It was made in 2000 for an exhibition in Venice  from copper casts of all of the known surviving panels.
In 1812, a peasant accidentally discovered a spectacular cache of objects in what seems to have been a princely chamber tomb at Castel di San Mariano di Corciano, 15 km west of Perugia.   The exact location of the find spot is no longer known.  Some of the grave goods remained in Perugia (now in the Museo Archeologico, Peugia) while others were dispersed.  King Ludwig I of Bavaria bought some of them from the English antiquarian, Edward Dodwell and passed them on to this museum, which he had founded.

The grave goods included a number of bronze reliefs.  Some of these had decorated wooden furniture, while others were all that survived of three vehicles:

  • a carpentum or woman's carriage (ca. 570 BC); and
  • two curri or parade chariots (respectively ca. 550 BC and 530 BC).

While some of the reliefs used on furniture had been cast, all of those that came from these three vehicles were made by the more sophisticated  repoussé technique (i.e. by depressing the back of the metal). 

The owner of these prestige goods had clearly been a man of considerable standing.  There is no way of knowing whether he was Etruscan or Umbrian, but the goods with which he was buried came from Etruscan workshops and had been collected over a number of decades.

Loeb Tripods (540 - 520 BC)

The fragments of three tripods were discovered in 1904 in a tomb that was at a location near San Valentino di Marsciano, south of Perugia that is no longer identifiable.  James Loeb bought them a year later and sent them to the Fogg Museum, Harvard, USA, where they were reconstructed as far as was possible.  James Loeb took the reconstructed artifacts with him when he subsequently moved to Munich and bequeathed them to the museum when he died there in 1933.

The so-called tripods are actually bronze stands, each of which is in the form of a tall, truncated three-sided pyramid that supported a cauldron.  It was possible to reconstruct two of these cauldrons, but only a few fragments of the third found their way to America.  Their owner was clearly a man of considerable standing: he may or may not have been an Etruscan, but the tripods are of Etruscan manufacture.  The smaller two seem to be broadly contemporary, while the third and largest was made perhaps two decades later.

The sides of the pyramids are decorated with hammered bronze reliefs, most of which survive (some partially and others almost complete).  Some of the reliefs carry heraldic devices while others depict Greek myths.  Some of the latter appear on more than one tripod:

  • the story of Peleus and Thetis (on three of them);

  • the hero Perseus carrying the head of the gorgon Medusa, whom he has killed (on two of them); and

  • Hercules killing the Nemean lion (also on two of them).