The Master of San Jacopo a Mucciana, Active in Florence during the last quarter of the 14th Century

The saint in a fur-lined red robe and cap is probably Saint Cosmas or Damian. They were patron saints of the Medici family during the Renaissance and therefore feature regularly in Florentine painting, especially after 1400. Their principal role was that of protectors against sickness, particularly the plague, and they are often present in votive paintings: the inclusion of one of them here, on a private devotional crucifix, is therefore understandable.

Prof. Luciano Bellosi has proposed the attribution to the Master of San Jacopo a Mucciana (verbal communication); an attribution supported by Everett Fahy but not endorsed by Prof. Miklos Boskovits. The Master's eponymous work is a large triptych painted for the church of San Jacopo a Mucciana, but now in the church of San Martino ad Argiano. Richard Offner was the first to make a comprehensive list of the artist's works (in the John D. McIlhenny sale catalogue, New York, Parke-Bernet, 5-7 June 1946, lot 149), Federico Zeri added to this (in a review of the exhibition Arte in Valdelsa a Certaldo, in Bollettino d'Arte, vol. XLVIII, 1963, p. 247), and most recently Miklos Boskovits listed further additions to the artist's oeuvre (in his Pittura Fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento 1370-1400, 1975, pp. 238-9, footnote 164).