Pietro CAVALLINI (active 1273-1308 in Rome),
Crucifixion , c. 1308
Fresco, San Domenico Maggiore, Naples
The Roman school of the second half of the thirteenth century was also crucial to the development of Giotto's work and Italian painting in general. Critical recognition of this has come late but is growing steadily. Pietro Cavallini is the outstanding artist of his school, especially with regard to his innovative use of colour and light. In Rome he painted frescoes (the most important of which is the Last Judgment in S. Cecilia in Trastevere) and designed mosaics (Life of the Virgin in S. Maria in Trastevere, dating from 1291). The painter also worked for some time at the court in Naples where we still have his frescoes in the cathedral as well as in S. Maria Donna Regina and S. Domenico. Opinion still differs on whether he worked on the Franciscan basilica in Assisi and the Sancta Sanctorum in Rome (the Chapel of St Lawrence in the Lateran Palace).
Despite being damaged, this image of Christ sitting in judgment surrounded by the angelic hosts reveals Pietro Cavallini's sense of monumental power. The measured frontal view comes from the Byzantine tradition while the warm tones of the colours and the play of the light are definitely new.
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The Last Judgement, detail of The Apostles,
1295-1300, wall painting, Santa Cecilia at Trastevere, Rome
In 1308 Cavallini was in Naples serving the Angevin kings, and was probably responsible for the design and possibly some of the execution of a fresco cycle in Sta Maria Donnaregina. Although he is such an obscure figure, Cavallini occupies an important place in the history of Italian painting. He was the first artist to make a significant break with the stylizations of Byzantine art, and his majestic figures have a real sense of weight and three-dimensionality. His work undoubtedly influenced his great contemporary Giotto, whose Last Judgement in the Arena Chapel at Padua features Apostles enthroned exactly as in Cavallini's fresco of the subject.
BiographyItalian painter and mosaic designer, active mainly in Rome, where he must have been the leading artist of his day. He was the great representative of the Roman School slightly before Giotto.
His two major surviving works are mosaics of the Life of the Virgin (Sta Maria in Trastevere, signed and dated 1291) and a fragmentary fresco cycle, the most important part of which is a Last Judgment (Sta Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome). In 1308 Cavallini was in Naples serving the Angevin kings, and was probably responsible for the design and possibly some of the execution of a fresco cycle in Sta Maria Donnaregina. Although he is such an obscure figure, Cavallini occupies an important place in the history of Italian painting. He was the first artist to make a significant break with the stylization of Byzantine art, and his majestic figures have a real sense of weight and three-dimensionality. His work undoubtedly influenced his great contemporary Giotto, whose Last Judgment in the Arena Chapel at Padua features Apostles enthroned exactly as in Cavallini's fresco of the subject.
