Jacobello del Fiore
Jacobello del Fiore was a Venetian painter in the late fourteenth century and early fifteenth century. His early work is in the Late Gothic style popularized by Altichiero da Verona and Jacopo Avanzi, two of his contemporaries, while his mature work displays a local Venetian style established by the school of Paolo Veneziano, an artist and workshop proprietor with notable Byzantine inspiration in his work. This stylistic return to his roots sets him apart from Niccolò di Pietro and Zanino di Pietro, Venetian contemporaries he is often associated with. During his lifetime, he received commissions primarily on the Adriatic coast and in Venice.
Early life and works
Birth and family
Jacobello del Fiore is likely to have been born around 1375, since by the time of his marriage in 1394, he was still under the tutelage of his father, Francesco del Fiore. While it is known that Jacobello del Fiore was married in 1394, the identity of his spouse is unknown, as is whether or not he had children. Jacobello's father, Francesco, was a painter himself: in 1376 he is documented in a contract as the chief officer of the confraternity, or organization dedicated to recognizing Christian works of charity, Scuola dei Pittori. Francesco headed a workshop that included Jacobello and his two brothers, Nicola and Pietro.The "Master of the Giovaneli Madonna"
While Jacobello's earliest surviving and confirmed work is dated in 1407, he is thought to be the painter of a Crucifixion piece in the Matthiesen Collection and the Virgin and Child of Piazzo Giovaneli, both painted in the late 14th century. The Crucifix was a common theme in Jacobello's earliest works, though as a subject it was a fairly common focus of many painters at the time. Art historian Andrea de Marchi was the first to suggest that a single author was responsible for these 'neo-giottoesque' paintings inspired by mainland painters Altichiero and Jacopo Avanzi and coined the author's unknown name as "Master of the Giovaneli Madonna". In the Matthiesen Crucifixion, Christ hangs on his cross in the center of the scene, dividing the followers of Christ on the left with the soldiers on the right. These details reveal that the author of the painting must have been familiar with the Late Gothic movement of the mainland and had Venetian training as well, due to the depiction of Longinus who lances Christ and the centurion who orders Christ's legs to be broken, two figures that also appear in Altichiero's Crucifixion in the Oratorio di San Giorgio, and also the city wall that closes the scene, a technique used by Paolo Veneziano.Similarly, art historian Carlo Volpe noted that a series of small Passion panels painted in the 1390s––Agony in the Garden, Lamentation, Way to Calvary, and Arrest of Christ ––share a Paduan influence and stylistic similarity with that of the Matthiesen Crucifixion." De Marchi also attributes The Madonna of Humility in a provincial museum in Lecce to the "Master of the Giovaneli Madonna", thus connecting this work with the Matthiesen Crucifixion and the Passion panels as well.
In 1401, Jacobello sent a polyptych, which has since been lost, to the church of San Cassiano in Pesaro, where it was seen by the 18th-century art historian Luigi Lanzi. The Madonna of Humility in Lecce, according to art historian Illeana Chiappini di Sorio, may well have belonged to this polyptych. Thus, the Madonna of Humility'', as hypothesized by art historian Daniele Benati, connects all of the above works by the "Master of the Giovaneli Madonna" to none other than Jacobello del Fiore.
A progression in style
The year 1401 marks a transition in Jacobello's career from a more archaic, gothic style, utilized in the last decade of the Trecento and captured in the Matthiesen Crucifixion, to a more modern style concerned with line, as seen in the Giovaneli Madonna and Crucifixion with Mourners and Saints in a French private collection. The latter, as De Marchi emphasizes, still derives from Altichiero and Jacopo Avanzi but moves beyond the sterner style of the Matthiesen Crucifixion by employing a looser Gothic flexibility. Both these works were probably painted between 1401 and 1407, the date of Jacobello's first surviving, verified painting.The Matthiesen Crucifixion contains allusions to Jerusalem and to biblical imagery such as the Golgotha, the location where Jesus was crucified. The older gothic style that Jacobello often used, exemplified by the Matthiesen Crucifixion, is characterized by distinct composition and posing of figures in front or side view, sweeping lines, and vivid colors, though the scheme of the Matthiesen Crucifixion is especially bright.
In 1407 Jacobello painted a triptych of the Virgin of Mercy with Saints James and Anthony Abbot now residing in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Pesaro but originally for the church of Santa Maria in Montegranaro. This triptych, according to Benati, reveals Jacobello's interest in the latest artistic trends: its technique and style are up to date, and the pinched nose of the Virgin points toward the influence of Lombard's Michelino da Besozzo. Similar influences found in Jacobello's triptych of the Adoration of the Magi in Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, place it chronologically near the Virgin of Mercy triptych.
In 1408 Jacobello is believed to have completed another Crucifixion scene with the aid of woodcarver Antonio di Bonvesin for a parish church in Casteldimezzo in Pesaro. The following year he is believed to have painted a tavola for Pesaro, first seen by Lanzi and later hypothetically identified by art critic Keith Christiansen as belonging to the Polyptych of the Blessed Michelina. These two paintings demonstrate his growing professional reputation achieved before the death of his father in 1409–1411.
Doge's Palace commission
As proof of his prominence, in 1412 the Venetian signory employed Jacobello with an annual salary of one hundred ducats, a stipend that was later reduced to 50 ducats because of Venice's war with Dalmatia.Between 1409 and 1415, Jacobello is believed to have been commissioned to decorate the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Doge's Palace, putting him in direct contact with advanced mainland painters such as Gentile da Fabriano, Pisanello, and Michelino da Besozzo. The influence of Fabriano and Michelino can be seen in Jacobello's previously mentioned 1409 Polyptych of the Blessed Michelina and in the later Virgin of Mercy between Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in the Accademia of Venice, likely painted in the mid 1410s. Michelino's influence can be seen in the heavy-limbed infant and areas of raised pastiglia decoration in the Virgin of Mercy and additionally in the 1415 Lion of St Mark , specifically in the animal's abstract tail and decorative wings.
Fabriano's influence can be seen in Jacobello's use of luxurious drapery and decorative sophistication; however, instead of adopting Fabriano's empirical attention to detail of nature and surface structure, Jacobello, as noted by Benati, upheld a stylized, abstract use of line and devotion to metallic appearances, giving his work a heraldic appearance. This conscious decision, as Benati further argues, marks a shift in Jacobello's style that loyally turns back to his early influences of the local Trecento tradition of Lorenzo Veneziano.
Later works and final years
The Life of St. Lucy, Francesco's Memorial, and final years
Commissioned for the Adriatic coastal town of Fermo, this altarpiece is considered his masterpiece. The first record of the work dates to 1763 when it was recorded in the inventory of Saint Lucy's Church in Fermo. The paintings, restored in 1950, highlight the refulgent beauty of the Gothic style that does not attempt to be naturalistic. Instead, Jacobello returns to the narrative style of Paolo Veneziano and his Venetian roots as opposed to moving in the same direction as Gentile and Pisanello.The eight scenes of the altarpiece depict St. Lucy visiting St. Agatha's tomb, distributing her possessions to the poor, refusing to sacrifice to idols, resisting the pull of oxen to a brothel, burning at the stake, getting stabbed in the throat, receiving Holy Communion before death, and finally, being placed in her grave. Jacobello places the first three scenes amid Gothic-style architecture and the latter five scenes in open spaces with of rocks and grass, which in their detail recall the French tapestries woven in the mille-fleurs style. Additionally, Jacobello captures the extravagance of 15th-century garb in the fifth scene depicting her failed burning at the stake.
In 1433 Jacobello erected a tomb in dedication to his father Francesco in San Giovanni e Paolo. Jacobello clothed the effigy of his father in a full-length robe to emphasize his social prestige. Benati notes that this stone memorial not only highlights the elevation of artists in that day from simple artisans to revered members of society but also celebrates the vocation of painting, a profession that by 1433 had given Jacobello much wealth and celebrity.
Benati concludes, "It was Jacobello who had to face the challenge of renewing local figurative culture from within, by degrees, and who ultimately succeeded in connecting the thread that tied it to its fourteenth-century principles. In the light of his youthful adherence to the Paduan neo-Giottoesque style, we can better understand how keenly, starting in 1407, he sought to adapt the novelty of the Lombard late Gothic style to local sensibilities."
During the 1430s he is believed to have mentored a young Carlo Crivelli, who was to be later known for his small colorful temperas of landscapes, fruit, flowers, and other accessories. Jacobello's adopted son, Ercole del Fiore, appears in a 1461 record stating his vocation as a painter. Jacobello died in 1439 in his sixties.