BARNABA da MODENA. – A Modenese painter who worked in the second half of the 14th century. He is first recorded in 1364, when he decorated the Ducal Palace in Genoa. He had already been in Liguria for some years, and it may be assumed that he was not very young given the importance of the commission. In 1367 he signed the *Madonna*, also executed in Genoa, now in the Städel Institute in Frankfurt. Another *Madonna*, now in Berlin, is dated 1369. From Liguria he moved to Piedmont, where his stay in the region is documented by works left at Rivalta and Alba in the church of S. Giovanni Battista, executed around 1370–1377. In 1380 he was summoned to Pisa to complete the frescoes of the *Life of St Ranieri* in the Camposanto. Before going to Pisa, he stopped in Modena, as a document shows. He remained in Tuscany only briefly and returned to Genoa, where he is documented in 1383: this is the last certain date that mentions him. Many of his works are found in the galleries of Piedmont and Liguria, in foreign museums, and in private collections. Among the latter, we may recall the *Madonna* in the Schiff Giorgini collection in Rome, signed *Barnabas de Mutina pinxit*, to be placed around 1367, which reveals his closest affinities with the Berlin *Madonna* and that of S. Matteo in Tortona.
The greater part of the paintings by Barnaba that have come down to us reproduce an archaizing motif of the *Madonna and Child*. They are solemn images in forms solemnly architectural, with antiquated mannerisms in the arrangement of the garments, all bordered in gold. Their faces are rounded, painted in very smooth and vivid hues; yet in the shaded areas, softened with sfumato, the colours return somewhat muted and as if burnished, those of painters inheriting the late Byzantine tradition. Despite the apparent monotony of the schemes, however, the Modenese master does not lack highly pictorial qualities. Barnaba also painted some small panels, such as the *Ascension* attributed to him by Venturi, formerly in the Sterbini collection in Rome, and another with the *Pentecost* in the National Gallery in London, also conceived in the old style, with the figures arranged in symmetry.