SALIMBENI, LORENZO AND JACOPO. — Painters. The
information concerning these two artists, born in Sanseverino (Marche) and active in the first half of the 15th century, is very scarce.
Lorenzo was the elder and, in all probability, the more accomplished of the two. His name appears for the first time in the 1400 triptych in the Pinacoteca of Sanseverino, in which he declares that he is 26 years old; his date of birth is therefore placed around 1374. His training is unclear. It is impossible to suppose influences from Gentile da Fabriano, whose education was, if anything, parallel, precisely for reasons of age; nor from Alegretto Nuzi, who, although he may have exerted some influence upon him, cannot, for stylistic reasons, have determined the orientation toward the forms of the International Gothic, which are already clearly felt and assimilated in Lorenzo’s first work, namely the aforementioned triptych. It is therefore necessary to agree with A. Venturi that L. arrived at these forms through the study of illuminated manuscripts from the north and, perhaps, also as a result of contacts with Venetian artists, who are encountered very frequently in the region at the beginning of the 15th century. In the early years of the 1400s, for example, Jacobello del Fiore stayed in the Marche, and Zanino di Pietro was there in all probability as well. In 1404 L. executed frescoes in the church of the Misericordia at Sanseverino, where a signed and dated figure of Christ is visible in an under-arch; in 1407, a Crucifixion in the sacristy of the church of S. Lorenzo in Doliolo.
The two brothers appear for the first time in the Stories of s. John the Evangelist, frescoed in the city’s old Cathedral; alongside them is an enigmatic master Oliviero. It is certain that from this moment Lorenzo and Jacopo clearly show themselves to be oriented increasingly toward the forms of the International Gothic, with a marked inclination toward a narrative manner, which reappears in the decorations of the crypt of S. Lorenzo in Doliolo, where, among other things, a fragile and most elegant figure of s. Lucia stands out.
The most representative pictorial cycle by the two brothers is undoubtedly the celebrated frescoes in the Oratory of S. Giovanni in Urbino, which bear their signature and the date 1416. The entire rear wall contains a great Crucifixion, while on the right-hand wall the Stories of the Baptist unfold in a series of panels arranged in two registers. Whereas the Crucifixion is marked by a dramatic quality of sometimes heightened realism, on the side wall everything becomes calm and turns into a pleasant and refined sequence of fantastic stories of the Baptist. In these, alongside the appealing expressions of the naturalistic element and anecdotal detail characteristic of the International Gothic, there emerges a tendency toward an extraordinarily refined decorative style, executed in subdued colours of rare preciousness. So great is the artistic unity of this wall that attempts have been made in vain (by Colasanti and others) to divide the work between the two brothers, while the stylistic differences from the Crucifixion are so considerable as to raise the question of the intervention of another hand (since the signature and date are found beneath the Crucifixion), to whom the Stories should be attributed. But much more probably these evident and already recognized differences are due to the influence exerted on the painters by their exposure to works by northern artists and probably to tapestries, with which even the chromatic qualities of these frescoes seem to be connected (Longhi). The frescoes of the Oratory of S. Monica at Fermo are also connected with the art of S., while other paintings — two canvases in the Gallery of Urbino — have likewise been assigned to them, though their attribution is far from certain. Lorenzo seems to have died before 1420, while Jacopo was still alive in 1427. — Vedi tav. CIV.