The Sant'Onofrio Altarpiece is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli

Luca Signorelli

Luca Signorelli was an Italian Renaissance painter who was noted in particular for his ability as a draughtsman and his use of foreshortening...

, housed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in the Cathedral of Perugia, Italy. It was painted for the church in 1484, commissioned by bishop Jacopo Vagnucci, a native of Cortona

Cortona

Cortona is a town and comune in the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy. It is the main cultural and artistic center of the Val di Chiana after Arezzo.-History:...

, Signorelli's birthplace.

Description

The scene portrayed is an Holy Conversation, with a high throne where the Virgin and Child sit, and which is placed over a Classical-style pedestal and crowned by a small engraved arch featuring a festoon with vegetables. Maria is reading a Bible, while Jesus holds a white lily, symbolizing her virginity and pureness.

Over a gilted step are St. John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

 and St. Lawrence, surmounted by two flying angels. On the marble step, below, Signorelli portrayed a sitting angle who is playing a lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

, perhaps a homage to elements typical of the contemporary Venetian school (such as the San Cassiano Altarpiece

San Cassiano Altarpiece

The San Cassiano Altarpiece is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Antonello da Messina, dating to 1475-1476. Commissioned for the church of San Cassiano in Venice, it is now housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna...

 by Antonello da Messina

Antonello da Messina

Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio was an Italian painter from Messina, Sicily, active during the Italian Renaissance...

). The angel also resembles one painted by Signorelli in the Basilica della Santa Casa, at Loreto

Loreto

-Places:*Loreto, Santiago del Estero, Argentina*Loreto , village and municipality in Misiones Province, Argentina*Loreto, Beni, Bolivia*Loreto , Brazil...

, a few years before. Standing on the foreground pavement are St. Onofrius and St. Herculanus, the patrons of Perugia

Perugia

Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....

.

Influences in the style of the painting include Ercole de' Roberti

Ercole de' Roberti

thumb|240px|Portrait of [[Giovanni II Bentivoglio]] . National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.Ercole de' Roberti , also known as Ercole Ferrarese or Ercole da Ferrara, was an Italian artist of the Early Renaissance and the School of Ferrara...

's Santa Maria di Porto Altarpiece, Donatello

Donatello

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi , also known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor from Florence...

 and Filippo Lippi

Filippo Lippi

Fra' Filippo Lippi , also called Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Italian Quattrocento .-Biography and works:...

 (in the fierce figure of Lawrence) and, in the figure of Herculanus, that of Piero della Francesca

Piero della Francesca

Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

's St. Augustine.