Resumen de La stella di Pomposa e alcune proposte per Pietro da Rimini
The Cross by Pietro da Rimini now in Urbania Cathedral, one of the landmarks of Giotto-inspired Riminese Trecento painting, is usually regarded as the result of local Franciscan patronage. A re-examination of the work, distinguished by the presence of an eight-pointed gold star, and a study of archival documents, point to a link with the Abbey of Pomposa, which governed the churches of Sant'Angelo in Provenzo and Sant'Eracliano in the territory of Urbania. The work therefore appears to have had a different initial destination, and the author re-examines Pietro's chronology during the 1320s, basing himself on comparison with less-studied paintings. The article concludes with evidence presented by two different Crosses, debated in both authorship and reconstruction: the first, putatively composed by uniting four fragmentary panels displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, probabaly consists of two separate, independent works; the second, housed in the Princenton University Art Museum, is in all likelihood a work by the Master of the Choir of Sant'Agostino, and reflects the evolution of Riminese painting during the 1320s, running parallel to the emergence of Pietro.
