Legal documents mention a Giovanni ‘painter’, then ‘master’, living in Rimini in 1292. He is assumed to be the same artist as the JOHES PICTOR (John the Painter) who signed the monumental Crucifix still in the church of San Francesco in the hill town of Mercatello sul Metauro. The very damaged frescoes representing the Life of the Virgin, with Augustinian Saints and Two Female Donors in the Campanile Chapel of San Agostino, Rimini (dated about 1300–10) are probably also by Giovanni.
One of the most talented members of the small group of artists now sometimes referred to as the School of Rimini, Giovanni da Rimini helped make the Italian port city of Rimini a centre of striking artistic innovation in the early 14th century. The group’s style was characterised by jewel-like delicacy, emotional intensity and iconographic originality. Surviving paintings by this group are rare, and by Giovanni himself rarer still.
