Giovanni Bonsi (painter)

Saint James , around 1570. Museo dell'opera del Duomo, Prato

Giovanni Bonsi (* before 1348; † around 1376), also known as Giovanni di Bonsi , was an Italian painter who worked in Florence after 1350 . For the period between 1351 and 1371 his work can be documented there. These also show that Bonsi was probably a respected painter and became relatively wealthy through his work and marriage.

Bonsi is the painter of a multi-part altarpiece from 1371 (or 1372) depicting the Madonna and Child and St. Onofrius, Nicholas, Bartholomew and the Evangelist John. The picture is signed by Bonsi, which was not really common back then. It is now in the Vatican's Picture Gallery in Rome. A few more panel paintings could be assigned to Bonsi around this work by comparing styles . He is also said to have painted some frescoes in the wider area around Florence.

Bonsi is an artist of the Trecento , the pre-Renaissance period in Florence. His painting style shows the influence of the important Florentine painter Orcagna from the middle of the 14th century and also influence from Giotto's successors such as Maso di Banco . Like many Florentine artists of his time, Bonsi paints with strong, compassionate expressiveness and in the often grieving facial expressions of his figures seems to process the events of the plague epidemic that struck the city around 1345 .

Works (selection)

• Madonna and Child and St. Onofrius, Nicholas, Bartholomew and the Evangelist John (1371, signed). Pinacoteca, Vatican (Rome)
• Saint Nicholas of Bari (1355), Museum of Art, San Diego, California (1355)
• Madonna and Child (ca.1360), Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
• Saint James, fresco (1570), Museo dell'opera del Duomo in Prato, Italy

Individual evidence

1. ↑ d-nb.info
2. ^ A. Lillie: Florentine villas in the fifteenth century: an architectural and social history . Cambridge 2005
3. ↑ Vatican Art Gallery , Room I, Rome
4. ^ A. Matteoli: Giovanni Bonsi e gli affreschi dell'Oratorio affreschi della Terza crociera dell'Oratorio di Sant'Urbano . In: Bollettino dell'Accademia degli Euteleti di San Miniato. Volume 33, 1960, pp. 45-51

literature

• L. Cavenaghi: The New Picture Gallery . In: C. Ricci, E. Begni: Vatican. Its history, its treasures. Rome 1914, p. 197
• R. Offner: A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting . New York 1958
• F. Zeri: Un'apertura per Giovanni Bonsi . In: Bollettino d'Arte. Volume 49, July-September 1964, pp. 228ff.
• E. Skaug: Contributions to Giovanni Bonsi. In: Antichità Viva. Volume 28, January-February 1989, pp. 12-3.
• M. Boskovits (eds.), S. Pasquinucci, B. Deimling: Tradition and innovation in florentine Trecento painting: Giovanni Bonsi, Tommaso Del Mazza . Florence 2000
• (Auction house) Christie's: Sale 1331 IMPORTANT OLD MASTER PAINTINGS, January 23, 2004, New York, Rockefeller Plaza (lot descriptions, accessed online January 2010)
• T. Burg: The signature: Forms and functions from the Middle Ages to the 17th century . Munster 2007