The considerations presented here arise from the discovery of an unpublished document relating to the death of Jacopino da Tradate in the registers of the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano. Contrary to what has hitherto been believed, the sculptor had already died on 1 April 1433, the date when the treasurer of the Fabbrica del Duomo received money “ab heredibus quondam magistri Jacobini de Tradate”. The proof of Jacopino's death prior to 1433 inevitably prompts a reconsideration of the modern reconstruction of his activity, which some studies even claim lasted to the mid-1460s.
Embellishing window 25 in the north transept of Milan cathedral are two sculptures, virtually ignored by scholars, that testify to the artist's final phase on the building site, during which he was flanked by apprentices whom, as the famous contract of 1415 states, he had raised and educated: a 'Saint Pope', identified by Ugo Nebbia as Pope Alexander V, and a 'Saint Galdino'. These works are precedents for another important sculpture dated 1438 and still in situ in the same window depicting 'Saint Francis receiving the stigmata'. It is thought that the latter may be assigned to Giovanni di Valdemagna, a homo novus for critical studies, probably among the pupils of Jacopino da Tradate and to whom a 'Saint Stephen' datable to around 1419 could also be attributed.