Abstract

Back in discussion at the end of the XXth century, the dating of the "Crucifixion" by Lorenzo Lotto in Monte San Giusto (Macerata) has undergone stylistic evaluations that have provided no univocal answers. F. Cortesi Bosco, the only scholar to have raised the issue of dating on documentary bases, has assumed two undocumented trips of Lotto in the Marches region and suggested that the work was painted between February-March 1527 and January-May 1529. The Author, having taken as a documentary basis the act of granting the patronage over the church of S. Maria in Talusiano to the bishop Nicolò Bonafede - who commissioned the "Crucifixion" - and his autobiography, conjectures that the first contacts between Bonafede and Lotto are to be placed at the end of 1523, and dates on April 1525 the commission of the painting. On the basis of various information, he comes to assume the painting to be realised in the 1525-26 biennium. A careful reconsideration of the correspondence of Lorenzo Lotto finally allows him to date the arrival of the fully completed painting in San Giusto by August 12, 1527.