Berruguete
Spanish family of artists. The painter Pedro Berruguete may have
spent some time in Urbino in Italy in the late 1470s, though documentary
evidence regarding this visit is confusing, and some of the Italian
works attributed to him are also claimed to be by JUSTUS OF GHENT. His
work was influential on painters of the Castilian school until the first
quarter of the 16th century. Of Pedro’s five sons, Alonso Berruguete was
a sculptor and painter who spent his early years in Italy. He was the
most important Spanish artist of the 16th century.
Pedro
Berruguete
(b Paredes de Nava, nr Palencia, c. 1450; d
Paredes de Nava, c. 1500).
Painter. According to some writers, he was painter to the Catholic
monarchs Ferdinand II, King of Aragon, and Isabella, Queen of Castile,
and to Philip the Fair (later Philip I, King of Castile, reg
1506) before his wife, Joanna ‘the Mad’, became Queen of Castile in
1504. Between 1470 and 1475 Berruguete executed the altarpiece of St
Helen (Paredes de Nava, S Juan), which demonstrates his mastery of
oil-painting techniques. A document of 1477, cited by Luigi Pungileoni
in 1822 but no longer traceable, records the presence in Urbino of a
‘Pietro Spagnuolo pittore’, who could be Berruguete. Thought to have
been in Urbino from 1475 to 1478, he may have assisted the Flemish
painter Justus of Ghent in the execution of a number of works for
Federigo da Montefeltro, including those for the decoration of his
library and studiolo in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino. It has been
suggested that Berruguete’s participation in this work was due to the
influence of one of his relatives, a Dominican friar in Florence. He
may, alternatively, have gone to Italy specifically to join Justus of
Ghent’s team. Paintings sometimes attributed to Berruguete in Urbino
include some of the 28 works forming the series of Portraits of
Famous Men (Urbino, Pal. Ducale; Paris, Louvre) for the studiolo,
Federigo da Montefeltro, his Son Guidobaldo and Others Listening to a
Discourse (London, Hampton Court, Royal Col.) and Federigo da
Montefeltro and the Order of the Garter (Urbino, Pal. Ducale). In
addition, the series of works depicting the Liberal Arts (Berlin,
Kaiser-Friedrich Mus., destr.; London, N.G.) are sometimes attributed to
him. Also while in Italy he is thought to have painted the Dead
Christ with Angels (Milan, Brera) and St Sebastian (Urbino,
Pal. Ducale) and to have worked on Piero della Francesca’s Brera
Altarpiece (Virgin and Child; mid-1470s; Milan, Brera), painting
the hands of Federigo and perhaps his helmet.
