ALBERTO OF SPOLETO. - A painter probably from Spoleto, active in the second half of the 12th century. A painted Cross tempera on parchment applied to wood, from the church of SS. Giovanni and Paolo in Spoleto and now in the city’s Duomo, bears his signature and the date 1187. The Christ is depicted alive, with open eyes, an upright body, and feet apart; on the side panels are standing figures of the Madonna and St John. Two frescoes in the church of SS. Giovanni and Paolo in Spoleto have been correctly attributed to A.: one in the crypt depicting the Martyrdom of the two titular saints, and the other the Martyrdom of St Thomas of Canterbury. — See Plates LIV–LV.
A.’s style is linked to the great current of Benedictine-Roman painting, of which it forms a characteristic provincial offshoot, not perhaps without some contact with contemporary Tuscan painting, especially from Lucca. The Spoleto Cross, remarkable for the energetic assurance of its design and the care of its execution, may be considered the prototype of a numerous series of painted crosses in Umbria: indeed the Crucifix in the little church of S. Damiano in Assisi (now in the church of S. Chiara) that spoke to St Francis, slightly earlier and very similar to the Spoleto work, is perhaps Roman rather than Umbrian.