On the other hand, the identity of the second saint is less certain.
Depicted with a book in his hands, the second figure is thought to be either Saint Phillip the Apostle or Saint John the Evangelist.
The composition of each panel was designed in a relatively autonomous way in spite of its membership in the retable.
The two saints testify to a design of the ideal beauty typical of Pérugino, and of what later his famous pupil Raphaël was going to endorse.
Their expressions do not betray any concern, and the saints are not taking part in any material activity.
In the painting there is there an exquisite softness which the painters of central Italy expressed so well.
The monumental quality of the figures and the overall effect of their integration in the retable would have been even more remarkable before its mutilation.
The other fragments of the retable are dispersed between Perugia, the Louvre (Paris), Alabama, Lyon, Grenoble and elsewhere in Toulouse.
Links
Go to the official web page of the Musée_des_Augustins. (The musée is the former convent of the Order of Saint Augustine in Toulouse.) There you will find five illustrated pages on the history of the church and convento. It is available in English, French and Spanish.
Musée_des_Augustins. Wikipedia.
ID0487
