From 5 July to 4 August 2019, Perugia will be the scene of an extraordinary art event. In fact, the Madonna Benois arrives at the National Gallery of Umbria, one of Leonardo da Vinci's early masterpieces, coming from the ErmitagediSanPietroburgo, which returns to Italy after 35 years from its only exhibition.
The appointment, one of the initiatives that celebrate the fifth centenary of the death of the Florentine genius, will experience a preliminary moment at the Pinacoteca di Fabriano, from 1 to 30 June, on the occasion of the XIII Unesco Creative Cities Network Annual Conference.
The exhibition offers the possibility of an interesting iconographic comparison between the Madonna Benois and the works of Perugino, executed on his return to Umbria from Florence, and preserved in the National Gallery of Umbria.
In fact, already in the Cronache Rimate of 1482, the painter Giovanni Santi recalled that Due giovin par d'etate and par d'amori / Leonardo da Vinci and 'l Perusino / Pier della Pieve who is a divine painter, to underline the profound relationship who linked the two artists as they worked together as young apprentices in Verrocchio's Florentine workshop.