The scene, part of the series of the
Stories of Jesus on the chapel's northern wall, is a reference to
Matthew 16 in which Jesus says he will give "the keys of the kingdom of heaven" to
Saint Peter. These keys represent the power to forgive and to share the word of God thereby giving them the power to allow others into heaven. The main figures are organized in a frieze in two tightly compressed rows close to the surface of the picture and well below the horizon. The principal group, showing Christ handing the silver and gold keys to the kneeling St. Peter, is surrounded by the other Apostles, including Judas (fifth figure to the left of Christ), all with halos, together with portraits of contemporaries, including one said to be a self-portrait (fifth from the right edge). The flat, open square is divided by coloured stones into large foreshortened rectangles. In the center of the background is a temple resembling the ideal church of
Leon Battista Alberti's
On architecture; on either side are triumphal arches with inscriptions aligning Sixtus IV to
Solomon, recalling
the latter's porticoed temple. Scattered in the middle distance are two scenes from the life of Christ, including the
Tribute Money on the left and the stoning of Christ on the right. The active drapery, with its massive complexity, and the figures, particularly several apostles, including St. John the Evangelist, with beautiful features, long flowing hair, elegant demeanour, and refinement recall St Thomas from Verrocchio's bronze group in
Orsanmichele. The poses of the actors fall into a small number of basic attitudes that are consistently repeated, usually in reverse from one side to the other, signifying the use of the same cartoon. They are graceful and elegant figures who tend to stand firmly on the earth. Their heads are smallish in proportion to the rest of their bodies, and their features are delicately distilled with considerable attention to minor detail. The
octagonal temple of Jerusalem and its porches that dominates the central axis must have had behind it a project created by an architect, but Perugino's treatment is like the rendering of a wooden model, painted with exactitude. The building with its arches serves as a backdrop in front of which the action unfolds. Perugino has made a significant contribution in rendering the landscape. The sense of an infinite world that stretches across the horizon is stronger than in almost any other work of his contemporaries, and the feathery trees against the cloud-filled sky with the bluish-gray hills in the distance represent a solution that later painters would find instructive, especially Raphael. The building in the center is similar to that in
Marriage of the Virgin by Perugino, as well as that painted by Perugino's pupil
Pinturicchio in his
Stories of St. Bernardino in the
Bufalini Chapel of
Santa Maria in Aracoeli. ==Legend==