Tra la Vita e la Morte: Simone di Filippo e Pietro di Giovanni Lianori per i Battuti bolognesi

The article focuses on some new findings regarding the supposed activity of Simone di Filippo (Bologna, documented from 1354, dead in 1399), the most productive Bolognese painter of the latter half of the 14th Century, also known as Simone dei Crocifissi, for the local confraternities of Santa Maria della Vita and Santa Maria della Morte. A sacred image of the Virgin and Child now visible above the high altar of Santa Maria della Vita was attributed to Simone in the 17th Century. However, an unknown 18th-Century author has already considered the painting as close to the Madonna in Fiesso di Castenaso (Bologna), signed by Pietro di Giovanni Lianori (Bologna, documented 1406-1466), one among the protagonists of late-gothic painting in Bologna in the first half of the 15th Century. As I have recently argued, the Madonna della Vita shows a style updated to Bolognese late-gothic artistic trends and can thus be attributed to Lianori himself. On the other hand, thanks to the discovery of an 18th-Century record, it is possible to advance that the cross signed by Simone now held in the church of Santo Stefano was commissioned by the confraternity of Santa Maria della Morte.