Baglioni Chapel

The Baglioni Chapel is a chapel in the Collegiate church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Spello, central Italy. It is known for its Renaissance frescoes executed by Pinturicchio from c. 1500 to 1501.

The decoration was commissioned by the prior (later bishop) Troilo Baglioni, and the end of the work is assigned to 1501. The work was the last important one by Pinturicchio in Umbria, before his sojourns in Rome and Siena. The paintings, typically for Pinturicchio, were executed rapidly thanks to a well-organized workshop, with other masters painting above his drawings.

In the later 16th century, the chapel received a pavement with Deruta ceramics. It was restored in 1976–77 and provided with an air conditioning system against the effects of humidity.

The chapel has a quadrangular floorplan with a cross-vault. The frescoes' theme is stories from the childhoods of Mary and of Jesus. The vault contains four Sibyls, sitting on thrones and flanked by cartouches with prophecies of the coming of Jesus. Largely damaged and over-painted, they were perhaps made by Bartolomeo Caporali. The wide grotesque candelabra on the ogives are perhaps from the same artist, due to similarities to those he painted in church of Sant'Antonio Abate at Deruta.

The three main scenes, in the shape of lunettes, occupy the three available walls and are enclosed within painted pillars and arches. The latter's painted intrados has geometrical and rosettas decorations, and creates the illusionistic effect of a Greek-cross plan.

The left wall shows the Annunciation, set in a large Renaissance loggia whose pavement, depicted in geometrical perspective, leads, behind the hortus conclusus, to a richly detailed landscape. The main characters are conventional ones: Mary is distracted from reading by an angel, who kneels to bless her with a white lily in one hand, a symbol of her virginal purity. In the upper part God the Father is depicted, surrounded by angels, emitting a ray of light incorporating the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove.

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