Giovanni di Pietro - a Spanish Painter Between Perugino and Raphael

The exhibition dedicated to Giovanni di Pietro, known as Lo Spagna, is running in the Salone d’Onore of the Rocca Albornoziana until August 1st 2004. Lo Spagna was one of the many Spanish painters to work in central Italy at the beginning of the 15th century, beginning his career as a young apprentice in the Florentine workshop of Perugino and later moving to Perugia itself at the same time that Raphael was working in the city and Pinturicchio was establishing his reputation as a painter in the palazzi of Rome.
Lo Spagna is known for a number of major works completed in the region, that include the Nativity of the Madonna of Spineta in Todi (Pinacoteca Vaticana), the Adoration of the Magi of Ferentillo (Berlin) and the Nativity of St Anthony in Perugia (Paris, Louvre). But of all the cities in Umbria, Lo Spagna was to develop a deep relationship with Spoleto, where he married Santina Martorelli of one of the city’s leading families and where he was nominated Capitano delle Arti dei Pittori e degli Orefici in 1517. In Spoleto Lo Spagna received commissions from the governors of the Rocca, as well as from the Franciscan friars and the Canonici Lateranensi, as well as from a number of corporations and penitent brotherhoods. He died in 1528, possibly of the plague.

As well as the main exhibition at the Rocca, entitled Giovanni di Pietro, un pittore spagnolo fra Perugino e Raffaello (May 29th – August 1st 2004), a number of guided tours entitled I luoghi dello Spagna will take visitors on the itinerary of on-site Lo Spagna works scattered in the surrounding area.
Exhaustive research carried out by the Spoleto state archives has brought to light hitherto unknown details of this painter’s life in Spoleto, which coincides with the most fertile period of his entire production.

Valle Umbra and Valnerina Itineraries
A number of itineraries planned according to certain themes in the work of Lo Spagna have been arranged for visitors through Valnerina and Valle Umbra, to complete the main exhibition at the Rocca Albornoziana.

1.Valley itinerary
Spoleto - San Giacomo - Campello – Trevi

2.Mountain itinerary
Visso - Gavelli - Caso - Sant’Anatolia

3. Valerina and Valle Umbra Thematic Itineraries
Valnerina
Available from May 29th to July 31st, this itinerary lasts 5 hours and covers a distance of 140 kilometres. Departure at 8.30am every Saturday and Tuesday. Cost: € 13 per person. Those interested are advised to book before 6pm on the previous day.

Calendar of tours:
Sunday July 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th, Sunday August 1st.

Tour programme:
Visso, Collegiata di Santa Maria, Gavelli, church of Gavelli,
Caso, church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Sant’ Anatolia di Narco,
Local produce tasting at € 8 (optional).

Valle Umbra
Available from May 28th to August 1st, this itinerary lasts 4 hours and covers a distance of 40 kilometres. Departure at 9am every Sunday and Wednesday. Cost: € 11 per person. Those interested are advised to book before 6pm on the previous day.

Calendar of tours:
Saturday July 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, 31st.

Tour programme:
Spoleto - San Giacomo, church of San Giacomo, Campello - Fonti del Clitunno, church of San Sebastiano, Trevi, Museo Civico di San Francesco and church of the Madonna delle Lacrime. Visistors will have a reduced cost entrance to the museum of € 1 per person.

The thematic itineraries are bookable by groups of minimum 20 people also in other days of the week, with the cost directly proportional to the number of participants.
Information and bookings: 0743.45940, tel. and fax 0743.46434, e-mail spoleto@sistemamuseo.it.


Details of the Works in the Itineraries

Spoleto San Giacomo di Spoleto
Giovanni di Pietro completed the decoration of the apse and two chapels. The records indicate that some thirty inhabitants of San Giacomo contributed towards the payment for the works, which were completed in 1526. The bowl-shaped vault is adorned with the ‘Coronation of the Virgin and St James, while the decoration of the two chapels was started by Lo Spagna and completed by two of his pupils, Dono Doni e Cecco di Bernardino di Assisi, after his death.
The church of San Giacomo is open every day.

Campello sul Clitunno (Pg)
Built in the early 1500s as an ex-voto chapel for the faithful to offer thanks for the end of the plague, the interior of this church is decorated with votive paintings of St Sebastian. The ‘Madonna and Child in Glory with St Sebastian and St Rocco’ on the far wall of the church was completed by one of his pupils from a preparatory drawing by Lo Spagna.
The church of San Sebastiano is open every day.

Trevi loc. Eggi (Pg)
The church of San Giovanni Battista in the small village of Eggi contains an apse that was decorated in 1532 by one of Lo Spagna’s collaborators working from a drawing by the artist.
The church of San Giovanni Battista is open every day.

Trevi (Pg)
For the church of San Martino Lo Spagna completed the large altar-piece of ‘The Crowning of the Virgin’, (1522), which today hangs in the museum.
The church of Madonna delle Lacrime was built at the end of the 14th century and in 1518 its rectors commissioned Lo Spagna to complete the fresco decorations in the chapel dedicated to St Francis. Lo Spagna painted the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, along with St Augustine and the portraits of the Canonici Lateranensi, the angels, St Ubaldo, St Joseph and the ‘Bearing of Christ to the Sepulchre’. Some time during the final ten years of his life he also completed the two paintings of St Cecilia and St Catherine of Alexandria for this same church, although they are now on display in the museum.
The Museo Civico di San Francesco and the church of the Madonna delle Lacrime are open every day.

Visso (Mc)
The church of Sant’Agostino was built in the 14th century. Around 1520 Lo Spagna decorated the first altar to the right with frescoes depicting the Eternal among angels, the Annunciation, a Madonna with Child, angels and cherubims, St Julian, St Nicholas of Tolentino, the archangel Raphael, Tobiolo, St Anthony and St Augustine. When the church was made redundant in 1868 the fresco was detached and moved to the church of Santa Maria. The work has been dated as having been painted during the last ten years of Lo Spagna’s life, with the help of some of his students.
The Collegiata di Santa Maria is open every day.

Spoleto loc. Gavelli (Pg)
The parish church of San Michele Arcangelo was rebuilt in the 15th century on the foundations of an older building. The single-nave and vaulted interior is almost entirely covered in frescoes. The small community of inhabitants of Gavelli commissioned Lo Spagna to paint what would turn out to be one of his most important cycles, which depicts the Virgin, St Peter and St Paul, St Michael the Archangel and the Gargano Miracle.
The church of San Michele Arcangelo is open every day.