MUNICH.- As a highlight and to conclude the Alte Pinakothek’s 175th jubilee celebrations, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen are staging the first exhibition on Pietro Perugino – one of the most successful artists of the Italian Renaissance – to be held outside Italy. It unites more than 30 works from all phases of the master’s creative output, focussing in particular on the heyday of the artist’s career in the late 15th century. ‘The Vision of Saint Bernard’, an altarpiece completed around 1490 which King Ludwig I of Bavaria, the founder of the Alte Pinakothek, managed to acquire in 1829, was the initial impetus behind this exhibition and forms its focal point. Although generally underestimated today, contemporaries heralded Pietro Perugino (c. 1450–1523) as the best painter of his generation. Prominent patrons courted his attention even some distance from Florence and Perugia, the centres in which he worked. Popes, cardinals, dukes and wealthy merchants were among his clients. He managed his workshop with astute business acumen, dealing with a surprising number of major commissions for the Church and municipalities in Umbria and Tuscany.