The Crucified Christ

Pietro da Rimini's Crucified Christ, painted around 1320–1330 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a significant work of the Riminese school, the important but often overlooked regional tradition of Gothic painting centered in the Adriatic coastal city of Rimini. Pietro was one of the leading masters of this school, which was strongly influenced by Giotto's frescoes in nearby Padua and developed a distinctive style combining Giottesque monumentality with heightened emotional expressiveness. The painted crucifix format was one of the most iconic forms of Italian Gothic devotional art, suspended above altar screens in churches.

Executed in tempera and gold on a shaped wooden panel in the traditional Italian painted crucifix format, the figure of Christ displays the Riminese school's characteristically expressive treatment of the suffering body. Pietro's modeling combines solid Giottesque volumetric form with sensitive surface detail in the anatomy, while the terminal medallions contain bust-length figures of the mourning Virgin and Saint John.