Justice between the Archangels Michael and Gabriel

In his early work, Jacobello del Fiore was clearly working within the modes of Venetian painting of the late fourteenth century. But as soon as he came into contact with Gentile da Fabriano whom the Republic of Venice had summoned in 1414-1415 to decorate the Great Council Chamber of the Palace of the Doges with his International Gothic ‘fables’, he tended to shake free of all the abstract precepts of Byzantine art and develop a narrative fluency and a stylisation of shapes and forms which reflected the spirit of ‘courtly’ Gothic style. He adopted this style when dealing with official themes too, as in the ‘Triptych of Justice’ painted in 1421 for the offices of the Magistrato del Proprio at the Palace of the Doges.