Luca Signorelli

Luca Signorelli (c. 1441/1445 – 16 October 1523) was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cortona, Tuscany. He was especially admired for his skill as a draftsman and his mastery of foreshortening. His greatest work is the series of large frescoes depicting the Last Judgment (1499–1503) in Orvieto Cathedral. After working in Florence, Siena, and Rome—where he painted a section of the Sistine Chapel that no longer survives—he returned to Cortona in his early forties. He kept his home base there for the rest of his life, though he frequently traveled to other cities in the region for commissions. According to his cousin, the art historian Giorgio Vasari, Signorelli likely trained under Piero della Francesca in Florence. In 2023, Cortona held a major exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of his death.

Signorelli’s birth name was Luca d'Egidio di Ventura, and he is sometimes called Luca da Cortona. His exact birth year is uncertain, with estimates ranging from 1441 to 1445. He died in 1523 in Cortona, where he is buried. His early artistic influences came from Perugia, including the styles of Benedetto Bonfigli, Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and Pinturicchio. His maternal uncle was Lazzaro Vasari, the great-grandfather of Giorgio Vasari, who wrote that Lazzaro arranged for Luca to apprentice with Piero della Francesca. By 1472, Signorelli was painting in Arezzo, and in 1474 he worked in Città di Castello. He gave a painting—likely the *School of Pan*—to Lorenzo de' Medici. That work was rediscovered in Florence around 1870 by Janet Ross and her husband Henry, who later sold it to the Kaiser Frederick Museum in Berlin, where it was destroyed shortly after World War II ended. Its subject closely matches a wall painting he did in the Petrucci palace in Siena, featuring Pan, Olympus, Echo, a reclining man, and two listening shepherds.

Signorelli ran a busy workshop in central Italy, and his reputation grew through the 1490s. He often returned to Cortona and worked in nearby Umbria, especially Città di Castello, where he painted the *Martyrdome of St Sebastian*, a masterpiece that influenced the young Raphael, who sketched it while working in the same town. In 1498, Signorelli moved to the Monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore south of Siena, where he painted eight frescoes on the life of St. Benedict, though they are now badly damaged. For Pandolfo Petrucci’s palace, he painted classical and mythological scenes, including the *School of Pan*. He remained healthy and active until his death, accepting commissions into his final year, such as the altarpiece for the church at Foiano.

From Monte Oliveto, Signorelli went to Orvieto to create his masterpiece: the frescoes in the Chapel of San Brizio (then called the Cappella Nuova) in the cathedral. The chapel already had two groups of images on the vault above the altar—a judging Christ and prophets—begun by Fra Angelico fifty years earlier. Signorelli’s work on the vaults and upper walls depicts events surrounding the Apocalypse and the Last Judgment. The Apocalypse scenes fill the space near the chapel entrance, starting with the *Preaching of Antichrist* and continuing with *Doomsday* and *The Resurrection of the Flesh*, each in a large lunette with a continuous narrative. In one, the Antichrist falls headlong from the sky into a crowd. The Last Judgment scenes occupy the facing vault and altar walls, including *Paradise*, *The Elect and the Condemned*, *Hell*, *The Resurrection of the Dead*, and *The Destruction of the Reprobate*. To Angelico’s ceiling, Signorelli added the Madonna leading the Apostles, Patriarchs, Doctors of the Church, Martyrs, and Virgins. The paintings are unified by scripture readings from the Roman liturgies for All Saints and Advent.

Stylistically, the frescoes were striking for their daring, terrible inventions, powerful nudes, and difficult foreshortenings. Michelangelo is said to have borrowed some of Signorelli’s figures or compositions for his own Sistine Chapel fresco. The lower walls are richly decorated with subsidiary work connected to Dante’s *Purgatorio* (the first eleven books) and with ancient poets and legends. A *Pietà* in a niche on the lower wall includes references to two Orvietan martyr saints, San Pietro Parenzo and San Faustino. The contract for the work still exists in Orvieto Cathedral’s archives. Signed on April 5, 1499, it promised Signorelli 200 ducats for completing the ceiling and 600 for the walls, plus lodging and monthly payments of two measures of wine and two quarters of corn. It also directed him to consult the Masters of the Sacred Page on theological matters—the first recorded instance of such a requirement, though art historians believe such discussions were routine. Signorelli’s first stay in Orvieto lasted no more than two years. He returned to Cortona in 1502, then later went back to Orvieto to finish the lower walls, painting a dead Christ with Mary Magdalene.