ALBERTO, SOTIO. - A painter probably from Spoleto, active in the second half of the 12th century. A Cross painted in tempera on parchment applied to wood, originating from the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Spoleto and now in the Cathedral of that city, bears his signature and the date 1187. Christ is represented alive, with open eyes, an upright body, and feet apart: on the panels at the sides are standing figures of the Madonna and St. Giovanni. Two frescoes in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Spoleto have rightly been attributed to A.: one of them, in the crypt, represents the Martyrdom of the Two Patron Saints, and the other the Martyrdom of St. Tommaso of Canterbury. - Vedi Tavv. LIV-LV.
A.’s style is connected with the great current of Benedictine-Roman painting, of which it constitutes a characteristic provincial offshoot, perhaps not free from certain contacts with contemporary Tuscan painting, especially that of Lucca. The Cross of Spoleto, noteworthy for the vigorous assurance of its drawing and the care of its execution, may be regarded as the prototype of a numerous series of painted crosses in Umbria: indeed, the Crucifix which, in the little church of S. Damiano at Assisi (now in the church of S. Chiara), spoke to St. Francesco, slightly earlier and very similar to the one at Spoleto, is perhaps a Roman rather than an Umbrian work.