Saint Philip Benizi by Pietro Perugino

Saint Philip Benizi by Pietro Perugino (c. 1505–07)

A friar in a niche

A young friar stands in a shell-headed niche, looking out at us. He wears the black habit and hood of the Servites, the Order of the Servants of Mary, and his head is shaven in the tonsure. With his left hand he holds out a large open book, turned so that we can read it; with his right he points to the words. They are in Roman capitals across the two pages: Servus tuus sum ego et filius ancille tue.

The line comes from the Psalms: "I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid" (Psalm 115:16 in the Douay-Rheims numbering, 116 in others). The words suit a friar of the Servants of Mary. Beside him, against the pale wall of the niche, stands a lily, which Perugino gives him as his other attribute.

The design is simple and the colour almost monochrome: the black of the habit, the grey stone, the brown mouldings of the niche. The light falls from the left across his face, the hand and the white pages of the book.

Philip Benizi

Philip Benizi was born in 1233 in the Oltrarno district of Florence, of the noble Benizi family. He entered the Servites as a lay brother, was persuaded to become a priest, and on 5 June 1267 was elected general superior of the order. He is credited with reviving it at a time when it was under threat: in 1276 Pope Innocent V declared the order suppressed, and Philip set out for Rome to defend it. He died at Todi on 22 August 1285 and is buried there in the church that bears his name. His feast is kept on 23 August.

The Annunziata altarpiece

The painting was one panel of the great altarpiece for the high altar of Santissima Annunziata, the Servites' church in Florence. The friars first gave the commission to Filippino Lippi, who died in 1504 while working on the central Descent from the Cross. They then signed a new contract with Perugino, who finished the Descent and painted the other panels, the whole being complete by 1507. Florentines criticised the result for its lack of new invention, and Perugino soon left the city.

The altarpiece was dismantled in 1654, and its panels were scattered. The Assumption is still in the church and the Descent from the Cross is in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. Saint Philip Benizi passed into the private collection of the Torlonia princes and from there to Palazzo Barberini in Rome, where it is now in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica (inv. 1212). The saint was originally shown full-length; the panel was later cut down and now measures 79 by 62 centimetres. The Fondazione Zeri dates it between 1505 and 1510; it is given here as 1507, the year the altarpiece was finished.

Perugino

Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino after Perugia, the chief city of his region, was born in Città della Pieve in Umbria around 1446–52 and died in 1523. Raphael became his most famous pupil.

About this print

Made from a photograph of the panel, which survives as a half-length figure in its niche.

Sources: Perugino 2023 (Comitato nazionale per le celebrazioni del V centenario della morte di Perugino) · Fondazione Federico Zeri, catalogue no. 21431 · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia, "Philip Benizi", "Annunziata Polyptych", "Pietro Perugino" · Psalm 115:16 (Douay-Rheims)