Jacopo di Cambio

Almost everything known about Jacopo di Cambio comes from a single object. On an embroidered altar frontal more than four metres long, now in Florence's Accademia Gallery, he worked his own name and the year 1336 into the design.

The frontal was hung before the high altar of Santa Maria Novella, the Dominican church of Florence, on major feast days. In silk, gold and silver thread on linen, it shows the Coronation of the Virgin among eight angels, with seven saints on either side. The drawing behind it is usually credited to a painter, most often Jacopo del Casentino, and the embroidery turned his design into stitch in the Florentine technique known as opus florentinum, which borrowed the look of painting. According to the museum, the only comparable embroidered frontal from the 14th century is one signed by Geri di Lapo and kept in Manresa, in Catalonia.