Church of St Nicolò
The Church of St. Nicholas is located in the village of Val de Rose, near the hamlet of Crocicchie, within the Municipality of Lisciano Niccone, home of a Raphael-style altarpiece painted by Eusebio di Jacopo di Cristoforo, aka da Sangiorgio, around 1515.
The painting “Holy Virgin with Child among St. Nicholas of Bari, the Blessed Bucarello, the Blessed Roman Francesca and St. Romuald” was part of the Pintoricchio exhibition at the Umbrian National Gallery (room 27), which ran until August 31st 2008. The painting, for the first time ascribed to Eusebio da Umberto Gnoli as confirmed by Assunta Pallottelli, has been long and largely ignored by critics, probably also given the isolated location of the Church of St. Nicholas.
It is nonetheless a remarkable artwork, which seems to recall the Holy Virgin of St. Augustine, now at the Umbrian National Gallery, painted by the same artist following an order by Bartolomeo di Lorenzo between 1506 and 1514 – according to some legal controversies between the painter, the customer and the “carpentarius” (carpenter) Gherardo di Taddeo (Urbini, Terza) – and, in part, his Madonna degli alberelli (Holy Virgin of the trees), painted on commission by the Confraternity of St. Benedict at Porte Sole in 1508 and now at the National Gallery (Sartore).
All three altarpieces are heavily influenced by masters such as Perugino and Raphael. Their composition, with the saints arranged around a throne raised by a wooden base featuring two front steps, is the same as the Altarpiece of the Decenviri by Vannucci, who started painting it in 1495 for the chapel of Palazzo dei Priori, and the Ansidei altarpiece by Sanzio, created ten years later and destined to the chapel of the church of St. Fiorenzo dei Serviti in Perugia.
The work by Eusebio, although completed with the help of an “apprentice” according to Gnoli, is characterized by the use of some innovative solutions such as the crossed-leg pose of the Child, partly resembling the Ansidei altarpiece, and the figure of Benedict, represented with the shame vigor and grandeur of those painted by Luca Signorelli in Monteoliveto between the late fifteenth and the early sixteenth century; another similarity is given by the ample sleeves of the robe. On the other hand, the dalmatian-like pattern on the clothing of St. Nicholas is a clear reference to the works by Pintoricchio along with the refined embroidery and the finely worked edges, with decorative patterns reminiscent of St. Lawrence in the altarpiece of St. Andrew, a four-hand work by Bernardino di Betto and Eusebio. Specifically, according to Pietro Scarpellini, the latter here contributed by painting the angels, St. Louis, St. Francis and St. Lawrence, whose robe would also feature an intervention by Pintoricchio limited however only to the virtuosity of the scene with the martyrdom of the saint, while leaving the responsibility of the exquisite decorations of the vestment to Eusebio.
Absolute convincing are the comparisons of the altarpiece with the two afore-mentioned Holy Virgins on the throne, in particular the Holy Virgin of “the alberelli”, where the group of the Holy Virgin with the Child is so similar that could be derived from an identical template. In fact, the pose of the blessing Child, the way he holds the book, his clothing and halo are the same as well as the face, the unusual articulation of his left hand and the drapes of the Holy Virgin, which in the altarpiece of Val di Rose are painted with the reverse side of the mantle in contrast, while in the Holy Virgin “of the alberelli” they are of the same color.
Article by Francesco Ortenzi - Gnoli 1923, p 105; Pallottelli, in Mancini, Scarpellini 1983, p34; Silvestrelli, in “Painting in Italy” 1988, pp.707-708; Todini 1989, I, p.66