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Master of the Barberini Panels
( fl c. 1445–75). Italian painter. The two eponymous works (New York, Met.; Boston, MA, Mus. F.A.) were painted in Urbino, whence they were removed to Rome by Cardinal Antonio Barberini (see BARBERINI, (4)) in 1631. The pictures, which have been the subject of much debate and speculation, are exceptional both for their ambitious architectural settings and their genre-like treatment of narrative. It is now generally conceded that they represent, in a highly unorthodox fashion, the Birth of the Virgin and the Presentation of the Virgin; that the elaborate architecture, with its wealth of Classical allusion, reflects the influence of Alberti; and that their author was either trained or deeply influenced by Fra Filippo Lippi in Florence c. 1445–50 and then fell under the spell of Piero della Francesca, aspects of whose palette and figure types he imitated in a superficial fashion. Other works attributed to the artist include, in their presumed order of execution, an Annunciation (Washington, DC, N.G.A.), a second Annunciation (Munich, Alte Pin.), a Crucifixion (Venice, Fond. Cini), three related panels with saints (Milan, Brera and Bib. Ambrosiana; Loreto, Santuario Santa Casa) and a painted alcove (Urbino, Pal. Ducale). The Annunciation in Munich bears the arms of the French banker Jacques Coeur and was probably painted in Florence during the financier’s trip to Italy in 1448. The alcove has, on the basis of its armorial devices, been dated after 1474, but this is by no means certain. It does, however, establish that the artist was employed by Federigo II, Duke of Urbino. The Barberini panels have been presumed to have decorated the Palazzo Ducale; this is unlikely since the panels are not mentioned in any inventory or description of the palace. They have also been supposed, almost certainly incorrectly, to have formed part of a larger series dealing with the Life of the Virgin, but the Presentation of the Virgin panel includes subsidiary representations of the Annunciation and the Visitation, thereby eliminating these two crucial scenes from any hypothetical series. Alternatively, it has been suggested that one or both of the Barberini panels formed part of an altarpiece of the Birth of the Virgin commissioned in 1467 from FRA CARNEVALE for the church of S Maria della Bella in Urbino. Vasari mentioned the altarpiece in his life of Bramante, and it was later confiscated by Cardinal Antonio Barberini. Surprisingly, the identification has been dismissed, despite the fact that both panels are attributed to Fra Carnevale in a 1644 inventory of Barberini’s possessions. Even more surprisingly, Zeri’s identification of the Master of the Barberini Panels with Giovanni Angelo di Antonio da Camerino ( fl 1451–61) has been widely accepted, despite the fact that Giovanni’s activity as a painter is completely undocumented. Identifications of the anonymous master with Bramante and with Alberti have been rightly dismissed.
Part of the Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists family
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