Jacobello del Fiore
1370–1439 · Republic of Venice · International Gothic
The story
By legend Venice was founded on the feast of the Annunciation, 25 March in the year 421. So when Jacobello del Fiore signed and dated a large image of Justice in 1421, the number was no accident. The maritime republic was marking its thousandth year, and it chose this painter to do it.
He was the son of a Venetian painter, Francesco del Fiore, and he lived through a real shift in how Venice painted. He began in the ornate Late Gothic manner and moved toward the courtly, gold-heavy International Gothic style then spreading across Europe. In the Justice, the seated figure is flanked by the archangels Michael and Gabriel and set among lions, the emblem of Saint Mark and of the city itself. Venice liked to picture its own government as Justice, the virtue it prized above the others.
Jacobello ran a busy workshop and held public commissions in Venice. He died in 1439, and the Justice hangs today in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, the museum that holds the great Venetian panels.
