Master of Città di Castello

The Master of Città di Castello is the conventional name of an anonymous painter active in Siena from about 1290 to 1320. Mason Perkins identified him and gave him his name in 1908, based on the style of a panel preserved in the Pinacoteca comunale of Città di Castello, in Umbria. He is counted among the early followers of Duccio, in the so-called first generation that includes the Master of Badia a Isola and the Master of Albertini.

The only firm date in his activity appears on the back of the Montespecchio Polyptych, made for the consecration of the new church of the Montespecchio hermitage in 1307. All other dating rests on stylistic grounds. For this reason most historians place his work between the last decade of the thirteenth century and the second decade of the fourteenth, although Freuler dates his latest works as late as about 1330. His style blends the elegance and chromatic harmony of Duccio with the naturalism and sense of volume of Giotto, and in later years he came under the influence of the young Simone Martini.

The Montespecchio Polyptych is his principal work. Its panels were separated and had different fates for centuries, and were not reunited until 2003 in the National Gallery of Siena. The partial inscription "ME FECIT" on the sword of Saint Paul makes it the oldest inscription of this kind in Sienese painting. His palette, with intense reds, whites, purples and blues, and his dramatic expressiveness make him easy to recognise. Some critics once thought he and the Master of Albertini were a single artist, but it is now considered possible that they were two brothers or two painters working in the same workshop.