Il polittico involato dalla chiesa di Santa Susanna in Villagrande di Mombaroccio

An analysis of the complex story of the polyptych that disappeared from the church of Santa Susanna at Villagrande di Mombaroccio (Pesaro), on the night between 20 and 21 April 1914, led to a wider-ranging study of the context in which the work had been produced and a suggested possible original provenance. Through a detailed comparison with works from the late Laurentian age, it has been possible to attribute the polyptych to the Master of Teplice, an eccentric late fourteenth-century Venetian artist, and to include it among his mature works. From the stylistic point of view, the polyptych shows both the clearly enunciated style of Venetian painting at the height of the fourteenth century and some more naturalistic touches, probably assimilated by the artist's being involved in a workshop with a varied production, such as that of Jacobello di Bonomo. Moreover, the presence of such a fine work in an early church of Mombaroccio would seem to point to the existence of close contacts between this small peripheral town and the Serenissima. The polyptych made for Mombaroccio is thus another link in the intense network of relations created in the specific Adriatic context, enabling us to explore the complex developments involving artists and patrons at the end of the fourteenth-century.