Pinacoteca Comunale – Deruta

The Pinacoteca Comunale is part of the Civic Museums of the town, together with the Ceramic Museum, and is set up inside the ancient Palazzo dei Consoli, built during the thirteenth century. This building, which according to the old documents have always been of small dimensions, was realized to be the seat of the medieval rulers of Deruta, while a part was destined to be a prison and then an archive. During the eighteenth century it was enlarged following a design by the architect Pietro Carattoli and was turned into a museum, which opened to the public in the twentieth century.

The archaeological remains preserved in the courtyard date back to Middle Ages and Reinassance.

The museum’s collection was formed at the beginning of the twentieth century with pieces of art coming from the neighbouring churches and convents and acquired by the local government. The collection grew over the century, thanks to important donations, such as Consilia Pascoli’s bequest in 1931, with more than forty masterpieces belonged to the author and collector Lione Pascoli.

The first floor houses the frescoes coming from the destroyed church of All Souls in Ripabianca, or the hospital’s church of San Giacomo in Deruta which originally housed a painting in the style of Perugino; in addition, there are pieces of art transferred from the church of S. Francesco, among which the Madonna dei Consoli by Niccolò Alunno, the Fratrum Minorum Prayer Book decorated by the Master of Deruta-Salerno and two processional banners showing the trigram, symbol of Saint Bernardine, by an unknown painter from the fifteenth century.

The Pinacoteca also preserves the detached fresco realized by Perugino in 1477/1478, during an epidemy of plague, originally in the church of San Francesco.

The second floor of the Gallery houses the Pascoli donation, which includes portraits, still life paintings and landscapes.

Facade of the ancient town hall that houses the Pinacoteca.

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Pinacoteca Comunale of Deruta

Perugino’s masterpieces preserved here:

Eternal Father between Saint Romano and Saint Rocco