The subject of the essay is a fragmentary 14th-century Crucifixion and saints painted on the eastern wall of a room located above the Chapel of Providence in the Church of San Nicolò dei Mendicoli, about 8 metres above church level, which is currently accessed from the parish priest’s house. In terms of typology and compositional structure, the work can be compared with several coeval wooden dossals of rectangular format and depicting the same subject, produced by small local workshops, mostly by anonymous artists, which enriched the lagoon landscape in the first decades of the century. In this artistically fervid and culturally stimulating environment, a typically Venetian language was being defined, on the one hand still anchored in 13th-century tradition, and on the other open to the influences of Palaeologian culture from the East and to Gothic suggestions from beyond the Alps and the mainland. Some clues found during the restoration in the late 1970s at the base of the panel, such as traces of candle smoke and colour fusion, suggest that the work was the painted altarpiece of an underlying altar, located approximately 80 cm lower than the current floor level. The fresco is also painted on the same plaster as a further decoration, depicting simple intertwined and clipeate quadrilobes, in imitation of a textile work, which must have covered the entire room. The small room, therefore, constituted a privileged space from its origin, the function of which appears, at the current state of studies, difficult to define. Some possible interpretations will therefore be suggested in the text, taking into consideration what the sources hand down and on the basis of the comparison that can be established with typologically similar and chronologically contiguous structures.
Il Maestro della Crocifissione di San Nicolò dei Mendicoli
Cristina Guarnieri
2025
Abstract
The subject of the essay is a fragmentary 14th-century Crucifixion and saints painted on the eastern wall of a room located above the Chapel of Providence in the Church of San Nicolò dei Mendicoli, about 8 metres above church level, which is currently accessed from the parish priest’s house. In terms of typology and compositional structure, the work can be compared with several coeval wooden dossals of rectangular format and depicting the same subject, produced by small local workshops, mostly by anonymous artists, which enriched the lagoon landscape in the first decades of the century. In this artistically fervid and culturally stimulating environment, a typically Venetian language was being defined, on the one hand still anchored in 13th-century tradition, and on the other open to the influences of Palaeologian culture from the East and to Gothic suggestions from beyond the Alps and the mainland. Some clues found during the restoration in the late 1970s at the base of the panel, such as traces of candle smoke and colour fusion, suggest that the work was the painted altarpiece of an underlying altar, located approximately 80 cm lower than the current floor level. The fresco is also painted on the same plaster as a further decoration, depicting simple intertwined and clipeate quadrilobes, in imitation of a textile work, which must have covered the entire room. The small room, therefore, constituted a privileged space from its origin, the function of which appears, at the current state of studies, difficult to define. Some possible interpretations will therefore be suggested in the text, taking into consideration what the sources hand down and on the basis of the comparison that can be established with typologically similar and chronologically contiguous structures.
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