GIUSTO de' MENABUOI. – Florentine painter, also called “da Padova” because he worked chiefly in that city, where he is documented from 1367 and where he died circa 1391.
Recent scholarship, in addition to clarifying the problem of G.’s training, which he received among the post-Giottesque painters of the Maso-Stefano-Giottino group, has attributed to him several frescoes executed in Lombardy, in the Umiliati abbey at Viboldone, dating from shortly after his first certain work: the Madonna of 1363 in the Schiff Collection in Rome. The paintings of the Paduan period include: a triptych of 1367 (now in London, National Gallery), the frescoes of the Chapel of S. Agostino at the Eremitani (1370), the grand cycle of frescoes, completed in 1376, that entirely covers the Baptistery of the Duomo, and the decoration of the chapel of the b. Luca Belludi at the Santo, completed in 1382. Among the few other securely attributed works is a small altarpiece recently rediscovered in the abbey of Montecassino.
A highly individual artist, G. is distinguished by a style that combines the Romanesque gravity of the figures with color rendered through subtle and refined gradations, not uninfluenced by contemporary Venetian painting. In his late works, the influence of the frescoes of Avanzo is also perceptible. – Vedi tav. LXI.
Nolfo di Carpegna