500th Anniversary of the Death of Pinturicchio

A fresco depicting Christ among the Doctors; above it the inscription "Pinturicchio" and the dates 1513 and 2013; below, the state inscription "SAN MARINO", the name of designer Claudia Momoni and the "R" mintmark.

In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Bernardino di Betto, known as Pinturicchio, was one of Italy's most sought-after fresco painters. Born around 1454 in Perugia, he worked closely with Pietro Perugino and played a major role in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, before taking on commissions as an independent master in Rome, Orvieto and Siena. He likely earned his nickname - "little painter" - because of his stature, not the scale of his work: the fresco cycles in the Piccolomini Library of Siena Cathedral remain among the most impressive narrative pictorial programmes of the High Renaissance. His style combines careful figure drawing with richly decorated, luminous backgrounds that still bear the influence of the late Gothic tradition.

Pinturicchio died in Siena in January 1513, so his death marked its 500th anniversary in 2013. San Marino, a small state on the Apennine Peninsula with a strong tradition of commemorating figures from Italian cultural history, took this anniversary as an occasion to issue a 2-euro commemorative coin. The chosen motif depicts a scene that also appears in Pinturicchio's own work: Christ Among the Doctors, an image widely found in Umbro-Tuscan painting of the early Cinquecento. San Marino's interest in Pinturicchio is unsurprising - geographically and culturally, the small state is closely connected to the central Italian artistic landscape in which the painter from Perugia spent his formative years.