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Virgin with Child and Angels with Saints Young St. John, Hippolytus, Benedict, Lawrence, and Romuald, in the coping Eternal Father
Triptych of wooden boards: central 194X85 cm, sides 135X59 cm, coping 70.5X86 cm, Inv. n. 115
In the tag on the lower end of the painting the viewer can read the signature and the date 1506. This is the first dated work by Bertucci, created to fulfil a commission of the Camaldolese for the church of St. Hippolytus in Faenza. In this church the painting was disassembled and the central panel, for the presence of a keyhole, was used during the Baroque period to close a niche. Following the Napoleonic suppression, the work became part of the Municipal Pinacoteca.
The triptych presents a blatant influence of Perugino, which prevails over the other components, which are typical of the Romagna school. In the central panel, there is the Virgin standing with two angels who are holding the cape open, an iconography deriving from the ?Virgin of Mercy?, commonly found in Umbrian circles but an innovation on the panorama of Faenza. In the side panels, inside the rooms that open onto a landscape there are the Saints: St. Hippolytus in the right one wearing battle dress, and St. Benedict in the left wearing the habit of the order. St. Lawrence, with the dalmatic, and San Romuald in a monastic robe. In the coping is a half-figure portrait of the Eternal Father between two little adoring angels.