Jacopo del Casentino

Casentino was a Florentine painter who specialized in small devotional altars commissioned for private worship. Along with artists such as Bernardo Daddi (1280 – 1348), Casentino helped popularize these altars throughout Italy. As with many of his contemporaries, he was influenced by the early master, Giotto (1267 – 1337), who Daddi was an apprentice of. Both Casentino and Daddi showed an influence from the Sienese style of painting in their works. It is noted that Casentino may have been in Giotto’s workshop and was a pupil of another Giotto follower, Taddeo Gaddi (1300 – 1366).

The Uffizi Gallery houses an important work from Casentino, a triptych of the Madonna and Child, Angels and Saints on the left and the Crucifixion on the right. This piece, sometimes known as the Cagnola Triptych, is the only work attributed to the artist.

It has been mentioned that the later Gothic style Casentino painted in was also influenced by the Sienese painters Pietro Lorenzetti (1280 – 1348) and his brother Ambrogio (1290 – 1348).