E. Lunghi – Abstract

Almost all churches belonging to castles in Perugia’s county have been rebuilt in XIX century, and the images these harbored are mostly lost or destroyed. From this ominous destiny have only been spared the rural majesties and the small churches devoted to the Madonna that can still be found along the roads and the fields. Many of these majesties were decorated in Renaissance and their original decorations are mantained. It must not be mistaken for popular art, as it was commissioned by the rich owners of the adjacent fields to invoke divine blessing on their own properties. This research has examined the remaining majesties in Perugia’s county of Porta San Pietro, identified the original landowners and recognized the work of painters renowned mostly for the production of panel paintings kept in big international museums: Giovanni Boccati da Camerino, Bartolomeo Caporali, Pietro Perugino, Bernardino Pinturicchio, Tiberio di Assisi and Raffaello da Urbino. The comparison between this rural majesties, often few hundred meters away one from the other, highlights the relationships between different painters and underscores the debt contracted with the commissioners for the invention of new iconographies.