Giunta Pisano

Who is Giunta Pisano?

Giunta Pisano was an Italian painter. He is the earliest Italian painter whose name is found inscribed on an extant work. He is best known for his crucifixes.

He is said to have exercised his art from 1202 to 1236. He may perhaps have been born towards 1180 in Pisa, and died in or soon after 1250; but other accounts give 1202 as the date of his birth, and the more probable date of 1258 or thereabouts for his death. There is some ground for thinking that his family name was Capiteno or Capitino.

Giunta Pisano usually painted upon cloth stretched on wood, and prepared with plaster.

The inscribed work, referred above, is also one of his earliest. It is the Crocefisso di S. Raniero, a crucifix, that hung a long time in the kitchen of the convent of St Anne in Pisa. Other Pisan works of about the same date are very barbarous, and, some of them may be also from the hand of Giunta Pisano before he had achieved his virtuosity.

A painting of a crucifixion for the High Altar of the upper church of Assisi no longer exists, but there exists an 18th-century engraving based on a copy of this portrait In the sacristy is a portrait of St Francis, also ascribed to Giunta; but it more probably belongs to the close of the 13th century.