Which artist painted The Tribute Money on the Sistine Chapel’s north wall?

Pietro Perugino painted The Tribute Money on the Sistine Chapel’s north wall.

The Tribute Money is a fresco showing Christ and the apostle Peter in a scene associated with the Gospel of Matthew. It formed part of the original decoration of the chapel’s side walls, commissioned under Pope Sixtus IV before Michelangelo’s later work on the ceiling. Perugino was one of several leading central Italian painters invited to participate.

The wall cycle presents episodes from the lives of Moses and Christ in parallel. The arrangement was designed to connect the Old and New Testaments, with painted landscapes, architecture, and figures helping unify the separate compositions. Perugino’s work was especially influential on younger artists, including Raphael.

Visitors often associate the Sistine Chapel wall paintings only with Michelangelo. However, the fifteenth-century fresco campaign also included Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, and other artists. Several works from the original cycle were later lost or altered, making artist identification important when discussing individual scenes.