( fl c. 1310–60). Italian painters. Simeoni and Sandberg-Vavalà grouped a number of Veronese painters comprising the first and second phases of 14th-century painting in Verona under the labels First and Second S Zeno Master. Cuppini later divided the First S Zeno Master’s work between three distinct hands: the Redentore Master, who painted frescoes in S Fermo Maggiore, Verona, in 1319–20, as well as other works in S Zeno Maggiore and Santa Trinità in Verona; the Master of Corte Lepia, named after a series of frescoes in S Giuliano di Corte Lepia, Vago di Lavagno, but who also worked in S Zeno Maggiore; and the Master of the Presentation, painter of the eponymous fresco and others in S Zeno. Of these the Redentore Master, who painted imposing portraits of the Franciscan Prior Daniele Gusmerio and the donor Guglielmo Castelbarco in S Fermo, is the most striking. His bulky figures, solidly modelled and with large staring eyes, correspond to the style of Paduan painting after Giotto. The Second S Zeno Master (probably representing a number of workshops) was responsible for frescoes throughout Verona, including more than 20 in S Zeno itself. With the exception of a dainty but strikingly undramatic St George and the Princess and three Scenes from the Life of St Nicholas in S Zeno, these are almost invariably votive renderings of the Virgin and Child, with or without saints, of a standard type repeated with little variation. This master’s, or group’s, style is more refined, with more consciously rhythmic drapery folds. The simple wooden thrones of the earlier frescoes are occasionally embellished with more intricate Gothic detail, and the pallid and staring frontal Virgins of the Corte Lepia Master are replaced by a more gracious and humane model. A dated fresco of the Virgin and Child with Saints (1354) in S Anastasia, Verona, is a little more ambitious in scale and scope and probably represents the latest phase of the second S Zeno style, which towards 1360 blends almost imperceptibly into a style influenced by Turone.

Part of the Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists family