UGOLINO di Vieri di UGOLINO. – Sienese goldsmith, d. between 1380 and 1385; he was trained in the craft by his father, together with his brothers Luca and Domenico, also goldsmiths.
First mentioned in a document of 1239. Between 1337 and 1338, with the help of Viva di Lando and Bartolomeo di Tommè called Pizzino, both of Siena, he crafted the reliquary of the Most Holy Corporal kept in the Orvieto cathedral. It is entirely in silver (height 1.39 m, width 0.63 m, weighing over a hundredweight), with two three-pointed façades that vaguely recall the façade of the Orvieto cathedral, with high pinnacles between the gables, the central one surmounted by a cross; statuettes adorn the base and the tops of the pinnacles and cusps. The concave base and the two façades are adorned with panels executed in the technique of translucent enamel: they depict scenes from the life and Passion of Christ and a complete illustration of the miracle of Bolsena and the events of the Most Holy Corporal. It also bears two inscriptions, one of which contains the artist’s name. In the Orvieto cathedral, coming from S. Giovenale, another reliquary is preserved, of gilded copper, in the shape of a hexagonal small temple with silver and enamel plaques, to contain the head of St Savinus: it bears on the crown of the dome an inscription with the signature of U. and Viva. A chalice signed by the same artists is in the church of S. Domenico in Perugia. Other goldsmith works are attributed to U., among which the remarkable silver reliquary with enamels from the abbey of S. Galgano and now kept in the parish church of Frosini (Siena); a rock-crystal cup with enamels illustrating the legend of Tristan and Isolde in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan and an enamel plaque with the Nativity in the British Museum. – See pl. LXXI.
