Pseudo Jacopino, circa 1335 - 1340

A. Volpe, "Aggiunte al 'Maestro dei polittici di Bologna,'" in Bollettino dei Musei Civici d’Arte Antica 6 (2007): pp. 26-27, reproduced p. 27, fig. 11 (as Master of the Bologna Polyptychs);

D. Benati, "Nuovi dipinti su tavola negli anni di Bertrando del Poggetto," in Giotto e Bologna, ed. M. Medica, Cinisello Balsamo 2010, pp. 79-85.

Active in the first half of the fourteenth century in Bologna, the still-anonymous artist known as Pseudo Jacopino was an important figure among the first generation of Bolognese painters in the days of Giotto. Roberto Longhi first identified Jacopino di Francesco, an artist active in the third quarter of the fourteenth century in Pavia, Lombardy, and Bologna.¹ However the group of paintings that Longhi associated with Jacopino were later proven to date decades earlier, thus the "Pseudo" was added to this earlier Jacopino's name to differentiate the two artists. A seminal figure in the development of Bolognese trecento painting, the Pseudo Jacopino derived influence from Riminese painters and early Bolognese manuscript illustrations. Several phases of his career have been delineated by more recent scholars, and to the latest phase belong a group of polyptychs that suggest the work of another hand (sometimes referred to as the Master of the Bologna Polyptychs).²

^The iconography of this devotional panel unites the moment of Christ’s death on the cross with the Last Judgment presided over by St. Michael, shown above the cross holding scales containing human souls and fending off a black demon representing Satan. The figures are represented hieratically, with Christ and the four central saints appearing larger than the diminutive Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross, yet the Pseudo Jacopino imbued the scene with human emotion as well. While the patron saints, John the Baptist and a Franciscan saint, hold their attributes and gaze stoically at the viewer, the Virgin and St. John the Evangelist are filled with anguish, as seen in their distorted facial expressions and tense hand gestures. The roundels depicting Saints Mark and John suggest that this panel belonged to a diptych or had a pendant panel that would have included the remaining two Evangelists.

1. R. Longhi, “La pittura del Trecento nell’Italia settentrionale,” 1934-5, reprinted in Opera Completa: Lavori in Valpadana, vol. 6, 1973, pp. 60-62; 73-76.

2. See A. Caleca, “Pseudo Jacopino di Francesco,” in La pittura in Italia, Il Duecento e il Trecento, 1986, vol. II, p. 654; R. Gibbs, “Pseudo-Jacopino,” in Grove Dictionary of Art.