STARNINA, GHERARDO. - Gherardo di Jacopo di S., painter.
Registered among the painters of Florence from 1387, between 1398 and 1401 he went to Spain, where he is recorded at Toledo and Valencia as the author of paintings on panel and wall. In 1404 he was again in Florence, working on a cycle of frescoes in the chapel of S. Girolamo in the church of the Carmine; then, in February 1409, he was at Empoli, working in the church of S. Stefano. This is the last information we have about him; on 28 October 1413 a Florentine document speaks of him as already deceased. A pupil of Agnolo Gaddi, and thus a painter closely bound to tradition—as he appears in the paintings of the Carmine attributed to him—according to Vasari, on the other hand, he played a far more important part in Florentine painting of the early fifteenth century: namely, that of intermediary for the International style in Florence and teacher of Masolino. Now, while the paintings of the Carmine may justify the belief that S. was indeed Masolino’s teacher, they cannot lead one to regard him as an intermediary of elaborate Gothic manners.
Such, however, he would have appeared in a fresco of St. Dionigi, until a few years ago visible on the façade of the Palazzo di parte guelfa in Florence.