The thesis, entitled “Pittura e contesto. Guariento”, is devoted to the Paduan painter Guariento di Arpo. Born around 1310, and dead before 1370, the painter is widely known because of the artworks he did for the Carraresi, and in particular the private chapel he painted inside their palace. Since he was an esteemed and much valued painter, his fame soon extended over the city boundaries, and he was involved in other important patrons' commissions. Indeed, the Rossi-Botsch wanted him to paint their funerary chapel inside the Dominican church of Bolzano, and later the Dogi called him in Venice to paint the funerary monument of Giovanni Dolfin, and the huge Coronation of the Virgin in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in Palazzo Ducale. Guariento worked a lot in his native city as well; the Eremitani, in particular, commissioned him two chapels inside their church. Furthermore, Guariento painted several altarpieces, which are now mainly scattered and kept in Museums and private collections all over the world.
Despite the fact that many ancient sources underlined the high quality and the innovative character of his paintings, modern scholars tend to underestimate his works. The fact that his most important works are partially or totally destroied, and the ambiguity of his style, has caused an evident misunderstanding of his paintings. Indeed, his models are yet to be identified properly, and the development of his style has been too strictly connected to other artistic schools, as if we were just a passive imitator.
Through a new analisys of his paintings, of the sources, and of the historical context in which the painter lived and worked, this research rearranges Guariento's entire artistic development. The thesis consists in four chapters, which are followed by the usual devices, the historical documents and the catalogue of the paintings. The first chapter is devoted to the critical reception: the opinions that ancient and modern scholars gave of Guariento's works are analyzed within the wider historical and cultural context in which they were expressed. The second chapter is focused on the stylistic evolution, which is analyzed starting from the first paintings, reconnected to the context of the giottesque Paduan workshops, to the last ones. Particular attention is also paid to the decorative and material aspects of the paintings, that have been totally ignored by scholars untill now. The third chapter is devoted to patrons; the important frescoes commissioned by the Carraresi, the Rossi-Botsch, the Eremitani and the Dogi are the main subjects of this chapter. These fragmentary paintings are ideally recomposed in their original aspect, relocated in their sites, and analyzed in their inner meaning, that is often connected to the glorification and celebration of their patron. Finally, the last chapter is devoted to panel paintings. Here their functions, typologies and provenances are taken into account
