GIOVANNI di MILANO. — Giovanni di Jacopo di Guido da Caverzaio (now Caversaggio) in the territory of Como, painter; in 1350 he was in Florence, where he was registered as a foreigner in the Guild of Painters. In 1363 he became a member of the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries. Two years later he was already occupied for some time in painting the frescoes of the Rinuccini chapel in S. Croce and obtained an extension for their completion.
In 1366 he obtained Florentine citizenship for himself and his sons. In July 1369 he was in Rome working in the Vatican with the other masters summoned there by Urban. The supposed activity of Giotto in Milan in 1334 in the service of the Visconti, mentioned by Villani, and the frescoes of the Milanese abbey of Chiaravalle attributed to Giotto may have influenced the initial formation of the master’s figurative culture, to which the Lombard school of painting of the first half of the century certainly contributed as a fundamental element. It is certain that when G. da M. was in Florence in 1350, he already had a well-defined style.
GIOVANNI da Milano — The Magdalene pouring balsam on Christ’s feet; Martha and Mary; The Raising of Lazarus. The two lower scenes (Noli me tangere and A Miracle of Mary Magdalene) are by the “Master of the Rinuccini Chapel.” Frescoes in the church of S. Croce — Florence.
It appears most clearly in his earliest work, the polyptych signed and dated 1354 in the Gallery of Prato, where the figures, constructed with crystalline precision of outlines, have volumes decisively revealed with strong accents of a soft and pasty sfumato of distinctly Lombard imprint. These characteristics, though evidently compromised by contacts with the art of Florence and the chromaticism of Siena, are found again in the frescoes of the Rinuccini chapel, which are considered his major work. Other works by him include some parts of a polyptych and a most beautiful Pietà of 1365 in the Uffizi, an Annunciation in the Gallery of Pisa, and a multi-panelled panel in the Museum of Palazzo Venezia in Rome.