Trecento Receptions in Early Renaissance Paduan Art. The Ovetari Chapel and its Models. Revival or Persistence?
Zuleika Murat
This essay is devoted to a peculiar case of Trecento Receptions in Early Renaissance art: the Ovetari Chapel in the Church of the Eremitani in Padua. Its painted decoration was commissioned in 1448 to four artists (Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d’Alemagna, Nicolò Pizolo and Andrea Mantegna), two of them being asked to follow specific models that dated back to the Trecento. Taking into account the documents and setting them in the backdrop of Quattrocento Padua, the author investigates the meaning of such a reception, arguing that it should be interpreted in the sense of the persistance of qualities that were still perceived to be valid rather than as a mere revival of an older style.