paintings, while medieval artists had de-
picted scenes and figures on a flat plane,
with no attempt to create an illusion of
depth. The techniques of perspective were
finally developed in Italy in the early Re-
naissance, in the work and the writings of
several Italian artists. “Linear perspective”
makes use of a single vanishing point, to-
ward which objects appear to grow smaller
and the lines of structures and surround-
ings appear to converge.
The basic principles of this system
were discovered by the Florentine architect
Filippo Brunelleschi in the early fifteenth
century. While observing the Baptistery, an
octagonal structure near the cathedral of
Florence, Brunelleschi painted the struc-
ture directly onto a mirror, then held up a
second blank mirror in order to verify that
his painted version was an exact replica.
He then carefully analyzed and measured
his painting to discover the underlying
mathematical principles that governed per-
spective. The Baptistery instructed
Brunelleschi in the use of a vanishing
point and the horizon line, where the lines
of different planes and objects converged.
Brunelleschi published his findings to
be used by other artists, and Renaissance
painting took on the most important as-
pect of its naturalistic, lifelike quality.
Paolo Uccello, another artist of Florence,
used perspective with surprising effect on
his muralThe Battle of San Romano,where
horses, weapons, and human figures all
serve to emphasize lines of perspective and
the vanishing point. The science of per-
spective was further explored inDella Pit-
tura, a work by Leon Battista Alberti, who
offered precise mathematical formulas for
the use of artists. Later artists developed
new systems of perspective, including
aerial perspective, in which objects go out
of focus and appear in a bluish light with
greater distance. Leonardo da Vinci put
aerial perspective to use inThe Virgin of
the Rocks, in which a sense of great depth
and mystery is achieved by the rendering
of the natural landscape as well as the con-
tours of the figures.SEEALSO: paintingPerugino .........................................
(1450–1523)
Italian painter whose style expressed clas-
sical ideals of balance and harmony, and
whose works made him an important fore-
runner of the High Renaissance style of
Italian art. Nicknamed for the town of Pe-
rugia, he was born in the Umbrian town
of Citta della Pieve as Pietro di Cristoforo
Vannucci. He studied painting as a boy
with the leading masters of Perugia, then
left for Florence, where he apprenticed
with Piero della Francesca and, as a fellow
pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, with Andrea
del Verrocchio. Two of his early works are
The Miracle of St. BernardinoandThe Ado-
ration of the Magi. He joined the confra-
ternity of Saint Luke, a painters guild, in
the early 1470s. In 1479 he was summoned
to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV and in 1481
completed a commission to assist in the
decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
His work for the famous chapel included
The Baptism of Christ, Moses and Zippo-
rah, andChrist Giving the Keys to St. Peter,
a painting noted for its expansive open
spaces and idealized, symmetrical architec-
ture. The careful composition and har-
mony of the poses give this and other
works of Perugino a sense of philosophical
dignity and calm, ideals to which artists of
the later High Renaissance would strive.
Unfortunately, the paintings covered the
section of wall that would later carryThe
Last Judgmentof Michelangelo Buonarroti,
and would be destroyed in order for Mich-Perugino