MEMMO DI FILIPPUCCIO

(b. ~1260 ?, d. ~1330 ?)

Italian painter and illuminator. He was the son of the goldsmith Filippuccio (active 1273-1293), and the father of the painter Lippo Memmi. In 1948 Longhi attributed a fresco of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Sts James and John the Evangelist in the church of San Jacopo, San Gimignano, and others in the tower of the Palazzo del Popolo there to Memmo, who is documented as having lived and worked in the town from 1303 to 1317. A document of 1303 also records him as having worked in the upper church of San Francesco, Assisi, and Longhi suggested this might have been on the frescoes of the St Francis cycle, which would account for the Giottesque influence he had noted in the frescoes in San Gimignano. Further attributed to Memmo are the frescoes of Carlo d’Angio Administering Justice (1292; San Gimignano, Palazzo del Popolo, Sala dell’Udienza), an altarpiece of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints (Oristano, Palazzo Arcispedale), which also shows the influence of Giotto’s work at Assisi, a Virgin and Child (Pisa, San Francesco) and a polyptych of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, formerly in the convent of S Chiara, San Gimignano (San Gimignano, Pinacoteca Civica).

Memmo is also documented in 1305 as having worked in the Collegiata Pieve, San Gimignano, and it has been suggested that the lunette of the Virgin with Saints on the inside of the entrance wall and frescoes of the Annunciation and the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Sts Catherine of Alexandria and Mary Magdalene in San Pietro, San Gimignano, should also be attributed to him; and that given their fluid, gentle style these should be dated before 1321, when Memmo was recorded in Siena.

Erotic scene

The early 14th century frescoes by Memmo di Filippuccio shows the love life of two young people, from courtship to marriage, on two walls of the Camera del Podestà.

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Erotic scenes

In the fourteenth century, heated chambers in patrician houses that served as both bedroom and living room were often elaborately painted, but the standard decorations were trees, plants of all kinds, coats of arms, and imaginary patterned draperies. One rarely finds an actual narration of the sort appropriate, for example, even for a bridal chamber. Even more uncommon are cycles representing either episodes or whole narrative sequences from the lives of actual lovers as opposed to fictional ones. An example is in the Palazzo del Podestà in San Gimignano. Here the erotic scenes were executed in a vaulted room in a tower (in the Camera del Podestà), and they reflect the ideals and the way of life of a courtly society.

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Wedding scenes

The picture shows the window-side wall of the Camera del Podestà with wedding scenes by Memmo di Filippuccio.

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