The first stop of the itinerary is dedicated entirely to the Umbrian capital.

For the artist, this city has always represented a strong element of identity: it is no coincidence that its main street is named after Pietro Vannucci, as is the first municipal art collection, the ‘Pietro Vannucci’ Civic Art Gallery, which formed the first nucleus of the National Gallery of Umbria.

And it is precisely from the Gallery in Perugia, a museum rich in masterpieces of Italian art, that our itinerary starts. It is housed in the beautiful rooms of the Palazzo Comunale, and contains the largest number of works by Pietro Vannucci in the world.

Two rooms are dedicated to the master Vannucci: room 16 on the third floor and room 23 on the second.

The works exhibited in room 16 illustrate the path that led the author to become the most successful artist in Italy, between his beginnings and his first prestigious commissions.

Here we find the beautiful and enigmatic Tavolette di San Bernardino, painted in collaboration with a team of painters, the Pietà del Farneto, the splendid Adorazione dei Magi, the small and precious Annunciazione Ranieri, the Imago pietatis - what remains of one of his masterpieces, the Pala dei Decemviri, painted for the chapel of this palace and now dispersed in various places -, the Gonfalone della giustizia, the Madonna della Consolazione.

Room 23 on the second floor is entirely dedicated to the masterpieces of his maturity, when the painter concentrated his activity in Umbria, until he closed the Florentine workshop in 1511. Visitors can admire the large altarpieces that repeat the artist's stylistic traits: the gentle and graceful madonnas, shadowing the figure of Chiara Fancelli, the painter's young wife, the ‘dancing’ angels, the ecstatic and elegant saints, the turreted cities in the background, the airy and aquatic landscapes, the bright and iridescent colours, the flowery and rocky corners, the light of eternal spring in Vannucci's canvases.

On Corso Vannucci, also in Perugia, you can admire one of Pietro Perugino’s great masterpieces: the frescoes of the Nobile Collegio del Cambio (Ancient Seat of the Money Changers’ Guild), painted between 1496 and 1500.

The money changers, the equivalent of today’s bankers, were a very powerful guild, so much so that in the mid-15th century they gained the important privilege of having their headquarters within the city hall. The decoration of the Sala delle Udienze, where the magistrates of the money changers’ guild held their meetings, was entrusted to Pietro Perugino, who was then Italy’s most famous painter.

Along the walls of the room, Vannucci created an important cycle of frescoes with a complex iconographic program developed by the humanist Pietro Maturanzio, centered on the idea of the correspondence between pagan wisdom and Christian virtues. According to the complex message conveyed by the paintings, the cardinal virtues of the ancient figures depicted there were fully realized in Christ.

Amidst beautiful grotesques and other decorations, the ruddy face of a serious-looking fifty-year-old man stands out: it is the artist’s self-portrait, who proudly identifies himself in the inscription below as “egregius pictor”.

Our Perugian itinerary in the footsteps of the artist concludes in Borgo Sant’Angelo. Here, in the convent of the Poor Clares of Sant’Agnese, Vannucci painted, in 1522—a year before his death—a fresco of the Madonna delle Grazie with Saints Anthony Abbot and Anthony of Padua; at her feet are the two figures of the commissioning nuns, Sister Eufrasia and Sister Eustochia. The current religious community still observes cloister, but Pope Leo XIII, a former bishop of Perugia, removed this restriction for the chapel with the paintings to allow public viewing of the fresco.

The second stop on our itinerary is the village of Deruta, known for the production of beautiful artistic ceramics.

The art gallery houses a fresco detached from the church of San Francesco depicting the Eternal Father with Saints Rocco and Romano, datable between 1477 and 1478.

The work, which dates back to Perugino's return after his stay at Verrocchio's workshop in Florence, depicts the two saints standing. St. Romano points with his hand to the perfectly recognisable view of Deruta, below, probably to indicate the intercession of the saints, traditionally invoked for the plague, on the village.

The whole is of great elegance and refinement.

The third stop on our route is Bettona, a spectacular scenic village set on a hill 353 meters above sea level. In the town's picture gallery one can admire two works by Perugino: St. Anthony of Padua and the Madonna of Mercy with Saints Stephen, Jerome and patrons. 

The third stop is Bettona, a spectacular panoramic village set on a hilltop from which one can enjoy beautiful views of the Umbrian countryside.

In the picture gallery you can admire three works by Perugino: the Saint Anthony of Padua, the Madonna of Mercy with saints and patrons, the Gonfalone di Sant'Anna, considered in part to be the work of his bottega.

In the first work, the saint stands in front of a fine marble parapet with his iconographic attributes, the book and the flame; an inscription reveals that it is an ex voto commissioned by Bartolomeo da Maraglia, a condottiere in the service of Giampaolo Baglioni, depicted kneeling at his feet.

The Madonna of Mercy presents the classic iconography of this subject: the Virgin protecting Saints Stephen and Manno under her mantle and the patrons kneeling in prayer, whose identification is unknown.

The Gonfalone di Sant'Anna was kept in the main church of Bettona, dedicated precisely to the saint. It depicts the Virgin and Child in the central mandorla, protected by the mantle of St. Anne, above, and the blessing Christ; in the lower part are Saints Crispolto and Anthony of Padua, protectors of the village. The figures in the upper part of the painting are probably the work of his bottega.

The fourth and final stop is the city of Foligno, at the Oratorio della Nunziatella in Via dell'Annunziata.

The 15th-century building is attributed to Francesco di Bartolomeo da Pietrasanta and is a true architectural jewel. Inside, the altar of St John the Baptist houses the Baptism of Christ by Perugino, whose illustrious prototype is the one painted by the same painter in 1480, in the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

The painting displays the Umbrian painter's most important and well-known stylistic features: the delicacy and sweetness of the drawing and the suffused atmosphere in which the figures and landscape are immersed. Two angels in flight at the top of the painting present the dove of the Holy Spirit in the centre, placed on the heads of the two sweet central figures, Christ and St. John the Baptist, who seem almost to dance in the water, surrounded by other angels. The landscape is that of the countryside around Foligno, with the Topino river ideally representing the Jordan.