Maestro della Crocifissione Campana (già Pseudo Jacopino) St James at the Battle of Clavijo

This work was part of the group that Arcangeli attributed to Jacopino di Francesco; more recent critics are divided as to whether the painting should be ascribed to Pseudo-Jacopino or to an as yet unidentified artist working at an earlier time (the so-called Master of the Campana Crucifixion).

In this case too, Arcangeli stressed the dynamism and expressiveness of the scene.

Here, the dominant feature is the “rampant, almost flying leap of St James over the troops still united in victory as in defeat”, while in the detail with the Christian Crossbowmen, “the tightly packed group shows an influence from the serious mood of the Rimini school... however, this is elevated by the master’s powerful temperament, resolving into a sort of harsh and agitated neo-Romanesque reincarnation of Giotto’s groups destined for dramatic fates (such as the ‘Slaughter of the Innocents’ in the Scrovegni)”.