Peruzzi Altarpiece

The Peruzzi Altarpiece was one of Giotto’s most famous works within this format. The piece features five portraits lined up together.

These five figures form a sacred company: Christ at the centre, with the Virgin and saints attending him. Their individual faces matter, but the ensemble belongs to the devotional world of an altar rather than to secular portraiture. Now in Raleigh, the painting preserves the concentrated effect of several figures gathered under one architectural framework. The museum's descriptive title, Christ Blessing with Saint John the Evangelist, the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Francis, makes that shared subject clear. ^[1]

Layout of the Altarpiece

Centrally, we find Christ Blessing. From left to right, the remaining four portraits feature St John the Evangelist, the Virgin Mary, St. John the Baptist, and St. Francis. Each portrait is placed onto a golden background, and then framed below an arched panel.

Including the central panel, the order from the viewer's left is John the Evangelist, Mary, Christ, John the Baptist and Francis. The placement puts Mary and the Baptist immediately beside Christ; the Evangelist and Francis occupy the outer compartments. Each half-length figure appears beneath a pointed arch, with a triangular gable above. The central gable rises higher, creating a broad, low silhouette that climbs to Christ and descends towards either end.

The compartments give each figure a distinct place without isolating the five from one another. Upright divisions establish a steady rhythm across the surface, while the gold behind the heads and the horizontal base bind the whole together. The figures fill their arches closely. There is little space above or beside them to distract from the exchange of heads, eyes and hands. Looking across the panel becomes a movement between presences rather than a journey through a landscape.

At the far left, the Evangelist holds a book against his body. His relatively youthful face and full, coloured draperies distinguish him from the Baptist on the other side of Christ, whose longer hair, beard and rough garment create a more austere appearance. Mary turns towards her son, one hand lifted across her chest. At the far right, Francis wears the plain brown habit of a friar and crosses his hands before his body. These differences make the five easy to distinguish even before a viewer knows their names.

Composition

Jesus Christ is sized slightly larger than the other portraits, and this combined with his central positioning immediately notifies the viewer of his significance. He holds a bound book in his left hand, whilst blessing us with his right.

Christ Blessing, the central compartment of the Peruzzi Altarpiece in Raleigh. The separate compartment makes the raised blessing hand and held book easier to compare with the complete assembly. Image source. Public domain. Proportionally reduced reproduction; original composition, colour and photographic lighting retained.

Christ also establishes a different relationship with the spectator. His head and torso face outwards, while the adjoining figures turn towards him. The blessing hand rises against the gold, its fingers clearly separated from the darker shapes of his clothes. The other hand supports a closed red book. Gesture and object balance one another on either side of his body: a blessing extended towards those before the altar, and a book held firmly against his chest.

The saints' gestures vary in scale and direction. Mary's open hand offers a quieter response to the raised hand of Christ. The Baptist gestures towards the centre, and Francis's folded hands draw attention back towards his own body. The broad sleeves and mantles give these small movements weight. The changes of angle create a relationship between the figures without requiring an imagined conversation. Christ's frontal gaze holds the group open to the person standing before it.

A faint cross also appears from behind his figure. The original artwork is now to be found at the The North Carolina Museum of Art, making it one of the few Giotto paintings to be found in North America. The fragility of his work, as well as the nature of fresco installations, means that most of his paintings remain in their original positions.

The cross is inscribed within Christ's halo, identifying his sacred status; it is not a separate wooden cross standing behind him. The surrounding figures have circular haloes without this cross. That distinction belongs to the painting's symbolic organisation as surely as Christ's larger scale does.

The Raleigh work also demonstrates the mobility of wooden altarpieces. Its present location cannot be explained through fresco fragility: it is a panel painting, and panel paintings could be removed, sold, separated and reunited. Giotto's surviving work includes both murals still attached to buildings and portable pictures in museums. The difference between those supports is essential when tracing what has remained in place and what has travelled.

Purpose

Altarpieces such as this would have served to remind religious followers of the importance of figures such as this within their faith. Stunning art such as this could help to reinforce their beliefs, and bring a visual support to the powerful scripture.

Its altar setting would have given these figures a particular focus. During Mass, the painted Christ could be seen in relation to the actions performed before the altar. The museum's educational account describes the work as a backdrop to the Peruzzi family's celebration of Mass. That use is understandable within the proposed chapel setting, although the surviving painting does not establish an exact original hanging height or the congregation's viewing distance. ^[21]

Mary and John the Baptist beside Christ can be understood in an intercessory relationship: they attend the central figure to whom prayer is directed. The Evangelist brings the authority of sacred writing, while Francis makes a specifically Franciscan presence visible within the group. A viewer could recognise a sacred hierarchy through the central blessing, the books, the haloes and the different forms of dress. The painting's restraint concentrates those meanings into a small number of legible signs.

There is also a useful contrast between this still assembly and the stories on the walls of the proposed chapel. Wall paintings could unfold successive episodes from the lives of the two Johns. Here the figures remain gathered together in a single, enduring arrangement. Repeated attention would return to the same blessing and the same attending saints. The broad format therefore sustains devotion without requiring the spectator to follow a sequence of narrative events.

Commission

The item is known as the Peruzzi Altarpiece as it was this wealthy family who originally commissioned the work. Giotto planned the piece for a small private chapel within the Church of Santa Croce and sized it accordingly for one of the walls in that building.

The Peruzzi commission and destination should, more precisely, be treated as a persuasive identification rather than a surviving documented commission. The museum's current collection label says that the combination of saints suggests the Peruzzi chapel; it also notes that the altarpiece's dimensions suit the presumed location and the chapel's present altar. The two Johns are particularly significant because the chapel is dedicated to them, and Francis suits the church's Franciscan identity. ^[1]

The Ascension of John the Evangelist in the Peruzzi Chapel, Florence; a wall painting separate from the Raleigh altarpiece. Image source. Public domain. Proportionally reduced reproduction; no colour or content enhancement.

Those clues work together. Neither the inclusion of Francis nor the presence of a John alone would identify one particular altar. Their combination, alongside the panel's size, strengthens the proposed association. It does not recover the words of a patron's instructions, the precise form of the original installation or an unbroken medieval ownership history. The familiar name Peruzzi Altarpiece preserves the association while leaving room to explain how it was reached.

Santa Croce's account presents the Raleigh painting as the chapel's former altarpiece. It also describes the Peruzzi as wealthy bankers whose patronage of a chapel close to the high altar carried exceptional prestige. Taken with the more qualified museum label, this gives a strong historical context without turning the proposed identification into a contract. The chapel's wall paintings, its stained glass and an altar image would have been distinct parts of a larger decorated religious space. ^[22]

The ensemble's attribution has also been discussed rather than universally settled in every detail. In his 2001 biographical entry, Miklós Boskovits reported broad acceptance of Giotto's authorship alongside disagreement over whether the execution matched his fully autograph works. He also noted the limited support for Ferdinando Bologna's proposal that a Baptist scene in Dresden once belonged to a painted reverse. That proposed addition should not be included in a reconstruction as though it were a surviving, securely identified part of this object. ^[23]

The piece was painted onto a poplar panel which was a highly popular type of wood for artists at this time. Oil painting would arrive in Italy many years later, and so tempera was used by Giotto during the early 14th century.

For this particular work, the reliable starting point is the museum's identification of tempera and gilded gesso on poplar. The statement about oil needs a broader historical qualification: oil painting had medieval uses, and its history cannot be reduced to an invention followed by a single moment of arrival in Italy. Cennino Cennini's Libro dell'arte, chapter 89, expressly discusses painting in oil on walls and panels, referring to German practice. That later Italian treatise is evidence for a technical tradition, not evidence that this altarpiece was painted in oil. ^[24]

Date

The Peruzzi Altarpiece is loosely dated to around 1310-1315, by which time Giotto had peaked as an artist and was enjoying some of the most prestigious commissions of his career. This item is believed to have been Gifted to its present owners via the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

The current collection catalogue gives the narrower date circa 1311–1315. Its credit line confirms a gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, rather than leaving the Kress connection as a supposition. ^[1] The date belongs well within Giotto's mature career. He died in 1337, so a work of the early 1310s cannot be placed at the end of his working life simply because its figures seem assured or monumental. ^[23]

The shared Peruzzi name can cause a further chronological confusion. Santa Croce currently places the chapel murals around 1310–11, whereas Michael Viktor Schwarz argues for 1334–36 in his study of Giotto's works. His discussion uses relationships with Andrea Pisano's Baptistery reliefs and other historical arguments to construct a later chronology for the wall paintings. This is a scholarly position on the murals, not a newly discovered date inscribed on the Raleigh altarpiece. The panel's museum date should therefore remain separately identified. ^{[22] [25]}

Technique and Medium

The altarpiece was constructed using tempera over golden leaf paint across a large wooden panel which measures approximately eight feet wide by three feet tall. The size is inevitably large because of how it would likely have been viewed from a long distance by many of the church’s congregation.

The precise overall dimensions in the collection record are 105.7 centimetres high, 250.2 wide and 15.2 deep. ^[1] The dimensions establish a substantial horizontal object; they do not, on their own, prove that it was designed for a distant crowd. Within a chapel, a panel could be encountered at different distances and from different angles. Its large, clear figures would reward a first glance, while the variations of gesture invite more sustained attention.

Gold leaf is actual metal beaten into thin sheets, rather than gold-coloured paint. Gesso is the prepared ground associated with the wooden support and gilded surface. The museum's material description distinguishes this worked gold setting from the coloured tempera of the figures. In reproduction, gold often reads as a flat yellow field. In the object, its reflective character is part of the material encounter; a photograph records only one lighting arrangement.

The gold also changes how the figures occupy their surroundings. There is no blue sky, distant horizon or interior room behind them. Their bodies have volume through the turns of shoulders, the folds of cloth and the shading of faces, yet they share a setting that cannot be measured as an ordinary landscape. The arches offer a visible structure around that sacred field. The combination allows bodily presence and devotional splendour to coexist without requiring an elaborate setting.

The increased size also allows the artist plenty of room to incorporate considerable detail. Although the portraits are relatively simple, Giotto can focus on precise brushwork around the facial features. He avoids highly decorative patterns and elements of symbolism, in the main, which were often used elsewhere in his oeuvre.

The relative simplicity of the background should not be mistaken for an absence of symbolism. Christ's cross-inscribed halo, his blessing and his book establish his authority. The Baptist's rough dress contrasts with the Evangelist's draped garments, while Francis's habit places him within a religious order. Mary's position beside Christ, her turned head and her open hand contribute to an intercessory reading. These are economical but powerful ways of telling the viewer who is present and how the figures belong together.

Colour sharpens those relationships. Red appears in Christ's clothing and the cover of his book, surrounded by the darker green of the mantle. The museum identifies vermilion in the work and interprets its use as communicating the importance of Christ and the Bible. This adds a material dimension to the visible colour: a bright pigment could carry emphasis as well as describe a garment or an object. The same red also links the book visually with Christ's body, making the object an emphatic part of his presence. ^[21]

The faces are differentiated through broad features and orientation: the Evangelist's younger appearance, Mary's pale, inclined face, Christ's frontal bearded head, the Baptist's heavier hair and beard, and Francis's tonsure. These distinctions remain intelligible in a modest reproduction. The composition's large decisions are clear: five arches, one central authority, and four figures whose varied responses animate an otherwise measured arrangement.

Conclusion

The Peruzzi Altarpiece is a rare treat for North American followers of 13th and 14th century Italian art. It remains famous because of its current location, but also can be considered a stunning artwork in its own right. We also see Giotto close to the peak of his powers in this painting, with it coming towards the end of his career.

Its historical place is in Giotto's mature activity, with substantial work still to come before his death in 1337. Today the strongest introduction is to begin with the ensemble itself. Follow the line of the pointed gables, pause at the higher central compartment, then look back across the hands and faces. The painting's devotional purpose becomes legible through those relationships. Five separate fields become one company gathered around Christ, and his outward blessing gives the viewer a place before them.