2 Euro "Luca Signorelli"

Luca Signorelli is considered to be among the greatest interpreters of Italian Renaissance painting. Born in Cortona between 1441 and 1445, he studied for a long time in Arezzo at the workshop of Piero Della Francesca. Thanks to his early works with subjects of Christianity, he was involved in the decoration of the Sacristy of the Cura of the Sanctuary of the Holy House of Loreto and, in his early thirties, of the Sistine Chapel, first as Perugino's assistant and later as titular artist. Famous are the 'rounds with Madonnas' now exhibited in the world's most prestigious galleries. The angel reproduced in the coin was taken from the work 'Blessed in Paradise', a mural painted around 1500-1504 in the Chapel of San Brizio (Cappella Nova) in Orvieto Cathedral. After comparing himself with all the best masters of the time and having combined his artistic career with a political one, Signorelli died in 1523 in his hometown of Cortona.