( fl c. 1345–65). Italian painter. The work of this Florentine, formerly known as the Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece, was grouped by Offner round the dated panel of St Anthony with Donors (1353; Fabriano, Pin. Civ. & Mus. Arazzi). The painter was later identified by Longhi as the ‘Puccius Simonis’ who signed a polyptych of the Madonna of Humility with Saints (Florence, Accademia) and (as ‘Puccius’) a Virgin and Child of 1360 (ex-Artaud de Montor col., Paris). Puccio everywhere shows himself indebted to Bernardo Daddi—in his compositions, his figure types, in decorative details and in his choice of the fabrics with which he clothes his Virgins and saints. As well as the general debt to Daddi’s style, the central panel and right wing of a triptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels (1354; Washington, DC, N.G.A.) show Puccio’s own engaging and lyrical variations on it. The left wing is widely attributed to Allegretto Nuzi, who may have been working in Puccio’s workshop, and it may be via Puccio that Daddi’s influence spread into the Marches. The hieratic Fabriano St Anthony shows, as do other works, the impact of Orcagna and Nardo di Cioni and their circle. A predilection for bulkily cubic or rectilinear forms that tend to pack the pictorial space reveals itself occasionally, as in a Pietà predella scene (Berlin, Gemäldegal.) or the triptych wing combining the Annunciation to the Shepherds and the Adoration of the Magi (Worcester, MA, A. Mus.). Puccio’s narratives reveal a concern with precise dramatic realism not always typical of Daddi’s followers.

• Puccio di Simone
  • Capanna, Puccio
  • Nuzi, Allegretto