Pericles the Athenian

Pericles the Athenian was included the hall’s artworks as an example of Temperance, and in the words of Roberto Guerrini, “The Athenian statesman is remembered for a famous quip made to Sophocles his fellow magistrate. The great tragedian being over-passionate in his verbal praise of a young nobleman’s beauty, Pericles retorted that not only should a public official keep his hands off public money but also purge his eyes of libidinous looks.” In other words, continence is one of the virtues required of a ruler in order to carry out his public duties with honour.

The exquisite, delicate and technically perfect brushwork Perugino used to portray this hero of the Greek world made him the greatest artist of his day. In 1500 when Mario Chigi of Siena asked his son Agostino, who was living in Rome, who was the greatest painter of their times, the latter replied that il Perugino was “the greatest master craftsman in Italy”: a well-merited renown following on the decoration of the Sistine Chapel in the early 1480s for which he assembled an illustrious team of painters including himself and master painters such as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, Pinturicchio, Signorelli and Piermatteo d’Amelia.