Alberto Sotio - The Mourning Virgin Mary - Walters 371155

Alberto Sotio (... - fl.

1187 Year 1187 ( MCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Spring – Emperor Isaac II (Angelos) sends a Byzantine expeditionary force under Alexios Branas to suppress ...

), also Alberto Sozio, was an Italian painter and illuminator of

medieval art The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, with over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional ar ...

from

Spoleto Spoleto (, also , , ; ) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is south of Trevi, north of Terni, southeast of Perugia; southeast of Florence; and north of Rome. H ...

, active during the second half of the

twelfth century The 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar. In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages and overlaps with what is often called the Golden Age' of th ...

Biography

Alberto Sotio is considered the central figure of the twelfth century Spoleto school of painting. The master's signature (with handwriting ''Sotio''), was found on the crucifix of the

Cathedral of Spoleto Spoleto Cathedral (; ''Duomo di Spoleto'') is the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia created in 1821, previously that of the diocese of Spoleto, and the principal church of the Umbrian city of Spoleto, in Italy. It is dedicated to the ...

in the lower part of the figure of the skull of Adam under the image of Christ with the date 1187, and even further down and precisely on the end of the cross read a fragment of the text ''A. D. MCLXXXVII. M.... Opus. Alberto. Sotii ...''. A precious work and in perfect conservation. He is also attributed some of the frescoes in the former church of ''Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Spoleto''. A fragment from a crucifix attributed to him is a rare example of an early Italian painting, executed on parchment affixed to a wooden panel. This suggests that he may have also worked as a manuscript illuminator. He is also credited with the fragment of the Madonna in Maestà, now preserved in the

Pinacoteca di Brera The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, an outgrowth of the cultural program of ...

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * * * * * Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 12th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Gothic painters Italian manuscript illuminators {{Italy-painter-stub