Tarquinius Priscus founds the Temple of Jupiter on the Campidoglio

Perino del Vaga's Tarquinius Priscus Founds the Temple of Jupiter on the Campidoglio, dated 1521 and now at the Uffizi, is a rare surviving panel painting by one of the most accomplished decorators and fresco painters of the Roman High Renaissance. Perino del Vaga was Raphael's most gifted assistant and later became the principal painter working for the Farnese pope Paul III and other great Roman patrons. This mythological-historical subject, drawn from Roman legendary history and evoking the Capitoline Hill's identity as the centre of Roman religious and civic power, connects to the contemporary culture of papal Rome, which constantly drew parallels between ancient Roman glory and its own aspirations to universal authority. As a panel by Perino, it is a precious document of the transition from Raphael's workshop to the post-Raphaelite period in Rome.

Perino's draughtsmanship formed in Raphael's workshop is evident in the graceful energetic figure style and the confident management of a complex multi-figure composition in architectural space. The figures demonstrate the absorbed classicism of the Roman school with naturalistic movement and the sense of inhabiting real three-dimensional space. Colour is varied and assured with the architectural setting rendered with antiquarian precision.