Page 23 - Jacobello del Fiore - His Oeuvre and a Sumptuous Crucifixion
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These panels relate so closely to the owned Arrest, which recalls the gesture of one
Crucifixion that as early as 1992 I proposed that of the Jews struck dead in the scene with the
they might have been its lateral elements, thus Killing of the Idolatrous Jews frescoed by the
forming a large-scale dossal – a hypothesis Bolognese painter in the late 1360s in the
later adopted by Andrea De Marchi, who Oratorio di Mezzaratta in Bologna (now
believed that the Passion scenes would have Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale).38 Yet with
been arranged on four levels flanking the respect to these solemn precedents, what
Crucifixion, ‘resulting in an altarpiece of about seems new here is the playful, slightly
130 x 190 cm’.36 However, direct analysis of caricatural, accent that now dominates the
the Crucifixion panel does not confirm this, image. As regards chronology, Mauro Minardi
even though we may not altogether exclude has noted that it would be hard indeed ‘to
the hypothesis: its sides, formed by the place this before about 1390, given the style of
original intact edge (left unpainted because it dress worn in the Way to Calvary at Hampton
was intended to be covered by a frame), reveal Court, where an acolyte wears flamboyant
that they were not sawn, while the backs of the stockings à la poulaine and a high collar’-
two panels in the Vatican still show floral (Fig.14) [‘potrà situare prima del 1390 circa,
decoration evidently carried out when they visti taluni indizi del costume evidenti
were part of a larger group, of which there is nell’Andata al Calvario di Hampton Court,
no trace on the back of the Crucifixion.37 dove un accolito indossa calzature
vistosamente à la poulaine e un abito dal collo
The small panels show us a painter making a calice’].39
use of the markedly Paduan language present
in the Crucifixion – for example, with a striking The works associated with the Virgin and
reflection of Giotto in the Deposition, where Child formerly in the Palazzo Giovanelli in
the group of solidly-cloaked holy women and Venice offer further points of interest, but
the Magdalen seated at the feet of Christ are more significantly they confirm the
literal citations from the fresco of the same chronology proposed here. The Giovanelli
subject painted by Giotto in the Scrovegni Madonna must have been very beautiful, to
Chapel. Elsewhere the prevailing influence is judge from photographs - (Fig.7):40 set against
that of Jacopo Avanzi, for instance in the a blue background, the image was striking for
background of the Agony in the Garden, which the tender gesture of affection that connects
resembles the lunette with the Martyrdom of Mother and Child, and for the fall of drapery,
Saint James in the Santo in Padua, or in the already late Gothic in appearance. Stylistically
gesticulation of Christ’s hand in the privately- this closely resembles the large Crucified Christ
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