A ‘Lost’ Panel and a Missing Link: Angelos Bitzamanos and the Case of the Scottivoli Altarpiece for the Church of San Francesco Delle Scale in Ancona

Abstract

In his will, dating from 1490, the nobleman Francesco Scottivoli from Ancona ordered his heirs to erect a chapel in his memory at the church of San Francesco delle Scale, and have it adorned with a painted altarpiece, executed in 1508 by a painter of Greek origin residing in Ancona. In the late 18th-century a full-scale renovation of the church resulted to the dissolution of the Scottivoli chapel and the removal of the painted altarpiece, which was subsequently lost and has been considered missing ever since. This article aims to identify the long-missing Scottivoli altarpiece and determine the identity of its creator based on the re-evaluation of previously published sources and the discovery of unpublished archival and visual material. In light of this new information, this study interprets the Scottivoli altarpiece within the context of the intense cross-cultural transfer that took place in the multicultural contact zone of the early modern Eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.

Keywords

• icon painting
• Cretan
• post-Byzantine
• Bitzamanos
• altarpiece
• Franciscans