Fra’ Carnevale, Bartolomeo di Giovanni Corradini 1445–1484

It is only recently that the long-hypothesized identification of Bartolomeo di Giovanni Corradini, called Fra Carnevale, with the author of a group of works gathered under the name “Master of the Barberini Panels,“ has been confirmed. These paintings--a Nativity of the Virgin (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. ) and a Presentation of the Virgin (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,) became the property of Cardinal Antonio Barberini between 1631 and 1633 and were registered in the 1644 inventory of his collection in Rome under the name “Fra Carnovale“ . This indication was forgotten, however, and as the hand of the author of these two paintings was recognized in other works it became necessary to group them under a conventional name, at the same time attempting an identification of the painter with one of the various artists active in Urbino in the second half of the fifteenth century: Fra Carnevale, Luciano Laurana, the Master of the Carrand Triptych (alias Giovanni di Francesco), Do