Giovanni Baronzio's 'Crucifixion': analytical approaches and art historical considerations

The small panel of the ‘Crucifixion’ attributed to Giovanni (da Rimini) Baronzio is a perfect example of the artistic achievements of the so-called School of Rimini. Baronzio, active between 1320 and 1350, was one of the most important painters of a group of artists working in Rimini during the first half of the 14th-century whose work was heavily influenced by the work of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337), characterized by Gothic and Byzantine influences. The panel, with an estimated date in the end of the 1320 s, represents a popular iconographic theme during this period and was painted in tempera and gold on wood. Non-invasive analytical approaches have revealed a rich history of interventions, re-touching and restorations, which allows for some interesting observations and considerations in regard to the work’s history. The applied analytical methods and the related art historical observations and interpretations are the focus of the present article. In order to avoid micro-sampling, a non-invasive methodological approach integrating spectroscopic (μ-X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), imaging (UV, X-ray radiography, infrared reflectography) and digital microscopy techniques was applied. This study aimed at the identification of the work’s original materials and techniques, its state of preservation and the complex history of interventions. Results showed that while original materials of the painting conform with those used by artists in fourteenth century Renaissance Italy, there are multiple later interventions both as small-scale inpainting as well as extensive overpainting of various parts of the original Crucifixion composition. Careful consideration of these interventions can shed light to aspects of the panel’s history of preservation as well as on issues of stylistic or compositional ‘corrections’- always an interesting dimension of the changing perceptions of works of art through time.