Pseudo Jacopino

(Bologna, first half of the 14th century)

In the path outlined by Francesco Arcangeli, Vitale da Bologna was flanked, due to his identical power of expression, by Jacopino di Francesco. Roberto Longhi and Francesco Arcangeli had both associated a large group of works with this painter, documented from around 1360 to 1386. However, more recent critics have attributed this group to an unknown artist predating Jacopino by almost thirty years, a contemporary of the young Vitale and now designated by the conventional name of Pseudo Jacopino.

Despite the change in attribution, Arcangeli’s words are still powerfully evocative with regard to a painter who, more than others, knew how to interpret the feelings and turmoil of a city ravaged by upheaval and strife. 

“Welling up in him, and in Bologna, is the uproar of laughter, the desolation of grief, the power of expression. Vitale’s sometimes poignant gentleness is lacking, but the genius of action certainly is not. This is harshly at odds with Giotto’s sculpted squaring, with the tranquil outlines of the Rimini painters, which Jacopino certainly knew well from his wanderings”.