Bologna hosts first exhibition dedicated to Lippo di Dalmasio, late medieval Bolognese painter

The Civic Museums of Ancient Art of the Bologna Civic Museums Sector presents from November 18, 2023 to March 17, 2024 the first exhibition dedicated to the figure of Lippo di Dalmasio, a celebrated Bolognese painter of the late Middle Ages, documented in Pistoia and Bologna from 1377 to 1410. Lippo di Dalmasio and the Arts in Bologna between the 14th and 15th centuries, this is the title of the exhibition curated by Massimo Medica and Fabio Massaccesi that will be held in the Sala del Lapidario of the Museo Civico Medievale in Bologna and promoted with the Department of Arts of the University of Bologna and in collaboration with the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, will present some 30 works, including paintings, sculptures and illuminated manuscripts, to retrace, with reference to the local artistic context, the activity of this master on whom the stereotype of “Christian painter and devotee of the Mother of God” born in the age of the Counter-Reformation hangs, in part justified by the survival of many of his works depicting the Madonna and Child, part of which will be exhibited on this occasion.

Son of the painter Dalmasio (Bologna, c. 1315 - Bologna, c. 1374) and nephew of the artist Simone di Filippo Benvenuti, known as Simone dei Crocifissi (Bologna, c. 1330 - Bologna, 1399), Lippo belonged to the prestigious Ghibelline Scannabecchi family. Like his father, he was for a long time active in Tuscany, in Pistoia, where he is likely to have undertaken his activity, obtaining his first important commissions. This experience, however, must have influenced his early training, leading him later to play an important role as an artistic link between the two sides of the Apennines. Equally decisive must have been his kinship with Simone dei Crocifissi, with whom Lippo shared, once he returned to Bologna around 1390, a strongly conservative attitude toward the more imaginative modes of Vitale da Bologna. He therefore soon became one of the most prestigious masters active in the newly started San Petronio building site, as documented by his involvement in 1393 in the creation of an ancona on canvas, now lost, for the Basilica’s high altar, completed together with Giovanni di Ottonello. As the extensive surviving documentation shows, Lippo was able to combine in these years a brilliant career, filled with numerous prestigious commissions, with a strong civic commitment, documented by his numerous public offices.

Image: Lippo di Dalmasio, Saints John the Baptist and Ambrose, detail (c. 1390; left panel of the triptych Madonna Enthroned with Child Angels and Saints for the church of the Conservatorio di Santa Croce; tempera on panel, 169 x 64 cm; Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale).

Bologna hosts first exhibition dedicated to Lippo di Dalmasio, late medieval Bolognese painter

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