Sano di Pietro e una replica dell’Assunta di Camollia di Simone Martini
Gabriele Fattorini
A devotional panel of the Assumption painted by Sano di Pietro (Siena, 1405-1481) in the 1470s, and which almost a century ago was in the prestigious collection of Charles Loeser (Florence), has recently reappeared on the art market. The settlement of the painting follows the example of a lost Assumption conceived by Simone Martini for the Antiporto di Camollia (the northern entrance to the city wall of Siena): a Trecento image which enjoyed particular success in the Sienese art of the 15th century, also because it was beloved by the famous preacher Saint Bernardino, who asked Sassetta for a sort of copy to stay in his church of the Osservanza (later Berlin, Kaiser Friedrich Museum; destroyed in 1945). The recurrence of the small Assumption offers the occasion to summarise the interest of the most important Sienese painters of the Quattrocento for Simone Martini’s Assunta di Camollia. Sano di Pietro was a leading figure of this typical phenomenon of reception of the Trecento in the Renaissance; as the paper explains, during his long career he painted in fact at least five versions of the theme in devotional panels and altarpieces.