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GIOTTINO - b. ~1325 Firenze, d. ~1369 Firenze - WGA

GIOTTINO

(b. ~1325 Firenze, d. ~1369 Firenze)

Italian painter, who probably painted the S. Remigio Deposition in Florence (Uffizi) which was regarded as a work of Maso di Banco by Vasari and earlier writers. The distinction of hand is evident, but it is by no means certain that Giottino was identical with a Giotto di Maestro Stefano who was painting in the Vatican in 1369, who in turn cannot be reconciled with Vasari’s Maso/Giottino figure. No other work can reasonably be attributed to the painter of the Uffizi Deposition, unless one accepts the attribution of it to Orcagna’s brother Nardo di Cione.

Pietà of San Remigio
Pietà of San Remigio by

Pietà of San Remigio

Celebrating the eloquent expression on faces of figures and their gestures, Vasari remembers the altarpiece in the Florentine church of San Remigio: the scene is grouped in the lower part of the painting, with the dead Christ, the Virgin, Mary Magdalen and other saints crying him. On the left the saints Remigio and Benedict with two kneeling women in modern clothes, probably the donors of the picture.

The painting is mentioned by Vasari as a work of Giotto di maestro Stefano called Giottino, and not otherwise documented. Certain critics have identified this with Maso di Banco, the author of the stupendous frescoes in the Bardi Chapel at Santa Croce, but it is more probable that we have here a personality of equal worth but distinct. Certain Lombard elements (e.g. the costume of the two figures of the donors) tend to indicate a painter who was familiar with northern painting: and Giottino’s father, Stefano, did, in fact, migrate from Florence to Lombardy.

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