SAINT MAURUS

Originally part of the polyptych of San Pietro executed by Perugino between 1495 and 1500, this small panel of Saint Maurus, one of St. Benedict’s disciples, and the main teacher of the Holy Rule in France, escaped the Napoleonic confiscations at the end of the 1700s that had scattered most of the panels of the great work. As Ottavio Lancellotti has written, the panels had already been placed in the sacristy after the choir was taken apart in 1591, due to the renovation of the building. The figure of Saint Maurus is shown in the Benedictine habit, intent on reading the book of the Holy Rule. It is difficult to ascertain his position in the sequence of the panels of the predella. It was probably near San Placido, given the spiritual bond between the two.