Pedro de Córdoba: a 14th-Century Painter Who Studied in ost-Giottescan Tuscany

Abstract

The discovery of a signature on a panel in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, bearing the name of the painter Pedro de Córdoba, has made it possible to reconstruct the artist’s production and to attribute to the same artist a series of frescoes and an altarpiece that is in the Diocesan Museum of Córdoba (Episcopal Palace). This polyptych was commissioned by the rich man Alfonso Fernández de Montemayor between 1368 and 1390. With these elements, in addition to a complete stylistic and iconographic reading of the works, an Andalusian artist of the highest level now flourishes, who deserves a crown among the painters of the Spanish Gothic. He is probably the Iberian artist who most solidly assimilated the language of Tuscan painting in the mid-14th century, and who was probably educated in the workshops of Bernando Daddi, Puccio di Simone and del Orcagna. These were the years of a true artistic revolution in Córdoba, led by King Enrique II of Trastámara.