\paperw3900 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 \b MASTER OF THE CASTELLO NATIVITY\b0 Italian painter\par
(Florence, active during the mid-fifteenth century)\par
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This anony
mous artist received his training in the 1440s in \b \cf4 \ATXht1093 Filippo Lippi\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 Æs workshop, where he probably collaborated with his master on several works, displaying a style deeply influenced by the friar. Later his cultural and fig
urative references broadened to include Domenico Veneziano, \b \cf4 \ATXht1101 Pesellino\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , Donatello and Luca della Robbia. He showed a preference for devotional themes, in which the artist was best able to express the gentle poetics of h
is feelings, with extremely accurate drawing and dense and gleaming colors. The name given to the anonymous artist derives from a panel that was found in the Medici villa of Castello, now in the Galleria dell'Accademia at Florence.
