From 11 October 2019 to 26 January 2020, the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia will be the scene of an exceptional art event. After two centuries, thanks to the collaboration with the Vatican Museums, the Pala dei Decemviri by Pietro Vannucci , known as Perugino, returns to the space for which it was conceived, inside the Priori Chapel, the heart of the main administrative body of municipal Perugia.

The exhibition, curated by Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums and Marco Pierini, director of the National Gallery of Umbria, proposes the extraordinary reunion between the frame and the cymatium, preserved at the National Gallery of Umbria, and the central table of the Perugino , from the Vatican Museums, exhibited in their original location.

The Priori Chapel , built in the mid-fifteenth century during the extension works of the Palazzo dei Priori, was the subject of decorative and furnishing interventions to make it the most noble and representative place of the building: the glazed majolica floor, decorated with floral motifs alternating with flying angels, it was built by Giacomo di Marino from Deruta known as il Cavalla between 1455 and 1457; while the walls with the famous pictorial cycles dedicated to the two patron saints, one of the city and the other of the palace, Herculaneum and Ludovico di Tolosa , were frescoed by Benedetto Bonfigli between 1454 and 1469. The wooden choir, inlaid with griffins and plant motifs, was started by the carver Gaspare di Giacomo da Foligno and completed by Paolino di Ascoli. To complete the decoration of the chapel was called Pietro Perugino, who painted for the altar the altarpiece of the Decemvirs depicting the Madonna and Child between the saints Herculaneum, Costanzo, Lorenzo and Ludovico: Herculaneum the "defensor civitatis" from the siege of Totila who died in 549; Costanzo the first bishop of the city martyred in the time of Marcus Aurelius; Lorenzo the patron saint to whom the cathedral of Perugia is dedicated and Ludovico the protector of the Palazzo dei Priori, proclaimed a saint in 1317. The iconographic theme makes explicit the identity value of the painting and underlines its close link with the civic dimension.

The work had been commissioned in 1479 to Pietro di Galeotto, but his death determined the assignment of the task to Pietro Vannucci in 1483. This second project also included the addition of a cymatium with the Madonna della Misericordia, for which, due to the excessive continuation of the works, Sante di Apollonio was involved, who finished it in 1486. The following year, however, Perugino he was called to repaint the cymatium, as the Decemvirs intended to celebrate the opening of the Monte di Pietà by affixing the image of Christ in piety.

The central panel, which incorporates the compositional schemes already adopted for the altarpiece of S. Domenico di Fiesole and for that of S. Agostino di Cremona, was completed by Vannucci in 1495 and is signed on the platform of the throne "hoc Petrus de chastro plebis pinxit ". The altarpiece remained in its original location for just over half a century until 1553, when the Priori Chapel was transferred to a new location in other rooms of the Palazzo.

In 1797 the work was requisitioned by the French troops as a consequence of the treaty of Tolentino and was carried across the Alps to the Musée de la République, (later Musée Napoleon and today Musée du Louvre), in a destiny common to hundreds of other works belonging to the Church. For some reason, however, the French ignored the cymatium with Christ in piety and the carved and gilded wooden frame by Giovanni di Battista di Cecco called il Bastone, which, after a stay at the Picture Gallery of the Perugia Academy, returned to Priory palace. In 1816, when Bonaparte's long parenthesis was over and the Bourbon monarchy was restored, Antonio Canova, sent to Paris by Pope Pius VII to recover the stolen goods, managed to bring the table back to Rome, which - despite the vibrant protests of Perugia - was destined for Vatican Picture Gallery.