Lippo Vanni à Avignon

Starting from the reconsideration of the attribution of a Crucifixion in the Museo Amedeo Lia in La Spezia, here referred to Lippo Vanni, this article proposes that the painter may have resided in Avignon during the last years of the pontificate of, Clement VI. The artists presence in the papal city around the year 1350 would justify his closeness to the entourage of the late Simone Martini, that is clearly reflected in the panel in La Spezia and in all the works from the artist's late period. Thus, it is possible to place in the context of Avignon the origin of a work with a complex iconography, the Saint Peter as Pope in the Courtauld Gallery in London, that is probably the result of a pontifical commission. Also, a little-known miniature from the Liber Sextos - originally from Toulouse and now in the Musée Episcopal in Vic - seems to irrefutably prove that Vanni was in the southern France at the time of his stylistic metamorphosis.