Chiesa di Santa Maria Nuova

Santa Maria Nuova in Fano preserves a group of paintings associated with Perugino and Giovanni Santi. Its principal work is Perugino's signed and dated 1497 altarpiece, accompanied by his Annunciation and a Visitation by Santi, father of Raphael.

Why it matters

Perugino painted the high-altarpiece for Santa Maria Nuova at the height of his career. Signed and dated 1497, it presents the Madonna and Child in glory above a Pietà lunette and a predella of five scenes. Some scholars believe the young Raphael may have collaborated on the predella. The church also preserves Perugino's Annunciation and Giovanni Santi's Visitation, bringing together important Umbro-Marchigian paintings of the 1490s.

What to notice

The main altarpiece combines the Madonna and Child with the Pietà lunette and five small narrative scenes in its predella. Perugino's Annunciation is in a side altar, while Giovanni Santi's Visitation records the style of the Urbino court painter and Raphael's father. The apse contains a wooden choir carved by Antonio and Andrea Barili between 1484 and 1489. The church's three-arched Renaissance portico and carved portal were made by Bernardino di Pietro da Carona.

Context and history

In 1518 the church was granted to the Franciscan Observants, who had left their extramural monastery of Santa Maria Nuova di San Lazzaro after the siege of Fano in 1517. They rebuilt on the new site and transferred the name with them; the portico and portal came from the earlier complex. The nave was consecrated in 1557, and the interior was remodelled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Perugino altarpiece was commissioned for the high altar and remained central to the church's artistic identity.