The Lamentation over the Dead Christ

Although the artist who created this extraordinary painting was active in Florence in the third decade of the fourteenth century, his style and method are difficult to localize. Works attributed to him are found in Umbria and Tuscany, and are often associated with Franciscan contexts, suggesting that he may have worked in a semi-itinerant way through the order’s network. This panel is most likely the central element of a predella running below the main register of an altarpiece — however, lamentation scenes are rare in predellas of this early date, and its narrow dimensions make it hard to imagine what would have existed in the field above it. The artist shows an acute awareness of his agency in depicting the event, skillfully manipulating every aspect of the figural and formal composition to enhance the emotional intensity of his subject. This joining together of form and subject announces a new age in the history of art.