Giovanni Baronzio (from 1345 to 1362)
Episodes of the Passion of Christ

The painting by Giovanni Baronzio depicts six episodes from the Passion of Christ. These are inserted in square compartments and follow a counter-clockwise order; starting from the top left: Deposition, Lamentation, Resurrection, Descent into Limbo, Ascension and Pentecost.
As it is asserted in an article written by the Italian art historian Federico Zeri in 1958, this work is connected to a similar painting housed at the Museum of Rimini. Both masterpieces alongside another missing work composed the reredos – ornamental screen that covers an altar – of the Franciscan monastery of Villa Verucchio.
In the work displayed here there are represented six episodes of the Passion that took place after the death of Christ. Those that happened before are rendered in the panel housed in Rimini. However, the episode of the Crucifixion is rendered in none of the two. This suggests that it must have been represented in a different and preeminent panel likely placed above these two or in the middle. Multiple aspects of this work, such as the narrative structure, the colour palette and the search of naturalism in the representation of bodies and spaces, manifest the great influence of Giotto upon the Rimini school in the fourteenth century.