Triptych of the Bagnano

Attributed to UGOLINO DI NERIO (active 1310-1340 ca.) Madonna with Child between Saints Peter and Romulus 1315-1320 ca. wooden panel; 115x155 cm; predella 39X155 cm church of Santa Maria a Bagnano Conflrming the Sienese as well as the Florentine influences to which the land of the Valdelsa, set at the horder of the two artistic centers of Siena and Florence, was subject during the 14th century, is this charming triptych, its language explicitIy imitating Duccio di Buoninsegna. The Madonna is drawn in profile within round arches as she exchanges affectionate tender gestures with the Son; to the sides, identified though the inscriptions that are on the gold background, there appear Saint Peter, dressed in an old-fashioned way, with a book and keys in his hands, and Saint Romulus, one of the first evangelists in Tuscany, represented here by the typical bishop’s insignias. In the pinnacles above, there is a half-Iength representation of Saint Francis of Assisi (unmistakable because of the presence of the stigmata on his side and hands), the severe figure of the benedictory Christ, and possibly Saint Lucy, who is holding in her hand a vessel that contains a small flame. The refined glazed colors, the relaxed, soft forms, especially of the faces of the Virgin and the Child, have always suggested that the triptych could be related to Ugolino di Nerio, the best and most faithful disciple of Duccio di Buoninsegna. This painter, in the second decade of the 14th century, after limited openings towards the art of his countrymen Simone Martini and the Lorenzettis, let Florence seduce him with its Giottesque innovations. Recently the critics, recognizing the high but not exactly sublime quality of this triptych, have expressed the opinion that the work is more likely by Guido di Nerio, one of Ugolino’s two brothets, enrolled in the Florence register of painters in 1327.