Stephen of Florence

STEPHEN OF FLORENCE. - 14th-century painter, father of that Tommaso known as Giottino, whose personality has recently been the subject of attempts at identification.

In a revenue codex of S. Giovanni fuorcivitas in Pistoia he is indicated as one of the best painters active in Florence, on behalf of the Dominicans (between 1347 and 1359). His oeuvre has recently been isolated by Longhi, among the anonymous or uncertainly attributed works of the 14th century, lending credence to the indications of the literary sources (Filippo Villani, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Giorgio Vasari), which praise his "diligence" or his "unified manner." With every trace of the master's activity in Florence having disappeared, his hand should therefore be discerned in an Annunciation from a private Genoese collection; in a Madonna enthroned and a Magdalene in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, assigned to the school of P. Lorenzetti, as well as in a Crucifixion from the Kress collection in New York and in a group of Assisi frescoes: Crucifixion in the old Chapter House of S. Francesco; Coronation of the Virgin in the lunette above the pulpit in the Lower Church; Crucifixion in the oratory of S. Rufinuccio; a fresco with the Virgin and Child, above a city gate and now in the Museo civico; Crucifixion and Annunciation in the convent of S. Giuseppe; The Virgin enthroned among four saints in the right-hand chapel in S. Chiara. It is above all from this last work that the master's powerful individuality emerges, to be placed among the greatest of the 14th century.

Riccardo Averini