assunta, messa di s. gregorio e s. girolamo

Antonio del Massaro's Assunta, Messa di S. Gregorio e S. Girolamo at the Pinacoteca Vaticana, painted around 1497, combines three theological images in a single altarpiece program: the Assumption of the Virgin, the Mass of Saint Gregory, and Saint Jerome in penitence. The Assumption — the Virgin's bodily translation to heaven at the end of her earthly life — was a subject of intense theological debate in the fifteenth century before its official definition as dogma, and its visual representation asserted Mary's unique status as Queen of Heaven. The Mass of Saint Gregory depicted the miracle in which Christ appeared to Gregory the Great during Mass as proof of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, making it a devotionally charged image for altarpiece programs in a period of intensifying eucharistic piety. Antonio del Massaro, also called Il Pastura, was an Umbrian painter active in Viterbo and Rome who worked in the tradition of Pinturicchio and Perugino. The Pinacoteca Vaticana holds one of the world's most important collections of Italian Renaissance painting, assembled across centuries of papal patronage and acquisition.

Oil on panel demonstrating the techniques characteristic of High Renaissance painting. The work shows competent handling of its subject matter within established artistic conventions.