500th Anniversary of the Death of Luca Signorelli

An angel as the central detail from Signorelli's monumental fresco The Elect in Paradise, created between 1499 and 1502 for the Cappella Madonna di San Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral. Above: the dates "1523" and "2023"; to the right: the issuing state "SAN MARINO"; along the left edge: the "R" of the Rome mint; lower left: the commemorative inscription "SIGNORELLI"; along the lower edge: the designer's initials "MB".

Luca Signorelli is one of the most important painters of the early Italian Renaissance. Born around 1445 in Cortona, he shaped a generation of artists through his masterful depiction of the human body in motion — an achievement that is known to have influenced Michelangelo. His major work was created between 1499 and 1502 in the Cappella Madonna di San Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral: a monumental fresco cycle depicting the Last Judgement, still regarded today as a milestone of European art history for its anatomical precision and narrative density. The frescoes show apocalyptic scenes, the damned and the chosen, angels and demons — all rendered with a directness that was unprecedented at the time.

For San Marino, the small state nestled within the Italian peninsula, Signorelli is no stranger: its geographic and cultural proximity to central Italy makes him a natural part of the shared heritage. With its 2023 2-euro commemorative coin, San Marino honours the 500th anniversary of the painter's death, who died in 1523 in his birthplace of Cortona. The chosen motif — an angel from the Paradise fresco in Orvieto — points to the heart of his oeuvre and to a tradition of depiction that long resonated in art history.