C. Quattrini – Franciscan sources for Gentile da Fabriano’s Valle Romita polyptych

The polyptych by Gentile da Fabriano for the hermitage of Santa Maria di Val di Sasso in Valle Romita, near Fabriano, entered Brera Art Gallery (the Pinacoteca di Brera) at two different times: in 1811 the larger panels, as Giotto's school, in 1901 the smaller ones, sold by Augusto Rosei.

Two unpublished manuscripts describe the polyptych before the suppression of the convent in the times of Napoleon Bonaparte: the Glorie Francescane nell’Ill.ma Provincia del Piceno by Fra Carlo Gasparini (1648, Ancona 'Luciano Benincasa' Municipal Library) and a late sixteenth- early seventeenth century report in the Miscellanea conventi of the Falconara Marittima Biblioteca Storico-Francescana e Picena.

These texts are the only ones to describe, albeit briefly, the polyptych in its lost frame and they generally confirm the recent reconstruction hypotheses.

Gentile da Fabriano, Valle Romita, polyptych, reconstruction