Serafino de' Serafini

Four Apostles, City Museum of Rimini

Serafino de' Serafini (1323-1393), also spelled Seraphino de' Seraphini was an Italian painter, active in Modena in the late 14th century.

Biography

He is known by a Coronation of the Virgin and other subjects in Modena Cathedral. The Coronation bears the inscription "Seraphinus de Seraphinis pinxit 1385 die Jovis x.x.i.i.i. Marcii. Little is known of this artist, we may conclude that he was probably of some importance in his time, from the following inscription in a chapel, not named, painted by him:^[1]

 
Mille trecento con septanta sei
Erano corso gli anni del Signore
E'l quarto entrava quando a so honore
Questa Capella al nobel fin minei.
Et io, che tutta in si la storiei
Fui Serafin da Mutina Pittore.

The early 20th century art historians Crowe and Cavalcaselle generally dismiss the power of Seraphini, stating that in his work, the Bolognese style alternates with some Giottesque feeling. His execution is rude, his color dull and flat and coldly shadowed.^[2]

References

1. Bryan, 1886-9
2. A New History of Painting in Italy: From the II to the XVI Century, Volume 2, by Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, page 168.

Sources

This article incorporates text from the article "DEI SERAFINI, Serafino" in Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers by Michael Bryan, edited by Robert Edmund Graves and Sir Walter Armstrong, an 1886–1889 publication now in the public domain.