Leon Alberti was born in Genoa. He was educated in Padua and Bologna and was a writer, humanist, architect, sculptor and painter -- a true "Renaissance" man. He studied liberal arts in Padua and law in Bologna. His family had been banished from Florence, but the banishment was lifted when Alberti was thirty-four, allowing his return. He did not stay long; his duties to the Popes returned him to Rome. For the next thirty years, his primary work was in Architecture for the Vatican. Alberti is best known for his writings on painting, architecture, and sculpture. His Architectural commentaries were the first written and published (1485) since ancient times. Alberti discoursed on all aspects of art and architecture, from linear perspective to the various pros and cons of working with different materials. A great follower of Pythagoras, Alberti eventually broke down architecture into three areas: arithmetic, geometric, and musical, explaining not just the quantitative, but the qualitative relationships of buildings. He was given the chance to work out his theories in actual architectural design and building by the princes Lionello d'Este, Sigismondo Malatesta and Luigi Gonzaga. Alberti's first projects were the Arco del Cavallo (now partially destroyed) and the Cathedral campanile (c. 1443). Alberti also designed a new facade for the church of San Francesco, considered to be one of his major accomplishments. Alberti designed several buildings with the help of Bernardo Rossellino in Florence. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of modern architecture. His writings were evidence of his beliefs: art and architecture were human, not religious, and should be designed with a rational, yet idealistic, approach.
$#ASPERTINI,AMICO
##Amico Aspertini 1475-1552 ca.
Amico Aspertini was born in Bologna. He was trained by Francia. As as Italian Mannerist, Aspertini often included personal touches which identified his work. His sketch books, now located at the British Museum in London, include drawings of various classical buildings in Rome done during his stay in Rome, 1500 to 1503. His works include the frescos done for the Church of San Frediano in Lucca, 1507 to 1509.
$#BALDOVINETTI,ALESSO
## Alesso Baldovinetti 1425-1499
Baldovinetti was born in Florence. It is not known for sure under whom he studied. His style reflects that of Domenico Veneziano. Baldovinetti was not only a painter, but also a mosaicist and stained glass designer. With Veneziano, Baldovinetti worked on the choir of Saint Egidio in Florence (1441--1451). He was considered one of the leading mosaicists in Florence. One well known mosaic covers the entire cupola of Florence's leading cathedral, the Santa Maria del Flore (1454). Baldovinetti was known for his large figures; this is especially apparent in the Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal (1466), where he portrayed the various prophets and evangelists. Other examples of his art include his panel showing John the Baptist, Catherine, Lawrence and Ambrogio, the "Trinity with St. Benedict and St. Giovanni Gualberto" (1470, Academia). The frescos of "The Nativity" and "Virgin and Child" are two of his best known pieces and are now located in the Louvre in Paris. These show the Madonna simply and with great sensitivity.
$#BARBARI,JACOPO DE'
##Jacopo de' Barbari 1440-1516 ca.
Jacopo de' Barbari was born in Venice. Although some have called him a Venetian painter, he worked most of his life in the Netherlands and Germany producing both paintings and engravings. It is not known under whom he studied, but it is apparent that he met and both influenced and was influenced by Durer. One of his greatest works was a view of Venice done in wood engraving in about 1500. His ideas about art spread throughout the Netherlands and Germany. One of his best known paintings, entitled "The Dead Bird" (1504, the Alte Pinakothek in Munich) was one of the earliest still lifes done in Europe. His "Naked Couple" and "Portrait of a Man", now located in Berlin, were allegorical genre scenes done with a Northern manner. $#BOCCACCINO THE ELDER,BOCCACCIO
##Boccaccio Boccaccino the Elder 1467-1524/5 ca.
The early studies of Boccaccio Boccaccino the Elder were in Ferrara, but he later moved to Cremona, where he did most of his work. Boccaccino was responsible for some very large frescos, done for the Cathedral in Cremona in 1518. His frescos vividly feature flowing draperies, strong movement by the figures, and excellent interiors with accurate perspective and scale relative to the rest of the painting. $#BOLTRAFFIO,GIOVANNI ANTONIO
##Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio 1467-1516
Giovanni Boltraffio was born in Milan in 1467. Originally trained in the Bergognone tradition and influenced by Foppa and Zenale, Boltraffio later came under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci; he was one of his best pupils and assistants. Leonardo's trust of Boltraffio is shown by the fact that when Leonardo left Milan he placed Boltraffio in charge of his workshop. Boltraffio painted frescoes in the church of St. Onofrio in Rome (1515). Because Botraffio thoroughly assimilated Leonardo's technique, there is still some dispute as to which of the two actually painted "La Belle Ferroniere" (the Louvre, Paris). There are several museums in Milan which have works of Boltraffio's showing a lightness of touch and a rich style. Some of Boltraffio's works include: "Portrait of the Poet Girolamo Casio" (before 1500), "Two Kneeling Worshippers (1516, Brera), "Casio Family Virgin" (the Louvre, Paris), and "Madonna and Child" (the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli, Milan).
$#BRAMANTE DA URBINO, DONATO
##Donato Bramante 1444-1514
Born in Monte Asdrualdo, Donato Bramante was the most important architect of the Italian High Renaissance. He received his early training from Piero della Francesca. One of his early frescoes was the half length "Christ at the Column" (1480-81, the Brera in Milan). Although his most important contributions are as an architect, Bramante began as a painter and had many pupils, among them Raphael. His architectural works evidence great talent and include the sacristy of San Satiro in Milan and the apse of Santa Maria delle Grazie. On the later, he was the first Architect to use a false front technique to give an illusion of depth. Bramante's work on the facade at the cathedral of Abbiategrasso (1497) had a two-story high niche surrounded by two columns and was one of his masterpieces. He moved to Rome in 1499, and was hired by Pope Julius II to carry out the Pope's elaborate architectural plans. Bramante was influenced by the classic Roman architecture discovered during archaeological excavations occuring at that time. He showed this in his works he moved away from the Lombardian architectural environment . Bramante designed a small rotunda at the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, the spot where St. Peter is believed to have been crucified. The rotunda was framed by Doric columns, and this design marked the beginning of the High Renaissance in Italy. His first commission for Pope Julius II allowed him a great deal of freedom of expression in the combination of a small summer house and the Vatican Palace. Bramante took full advantage of the sloping site by screening in the old buildings with arcades, tiered courts, and landings. In 1506, he began the design for the new St. Peter's; the project was not finished to his original design. He was quite interested in perspectives and, according to Vasari, it was he from whom Raphael took inspiration for the architecture in "The School of Athens". This is supported by one of the earliest of Bramante's sketches shows a complex architectural setting similar to that of the Raphael work. Two copies of this sketch are still in existence, one in London and one in Milan. Bramante's influence is seen in the Santa Maria della Consolazione, built beneath the Umbrian city of Todi and considered to be the perfect example of high Italian Renaissance architecture (early 17th century).
$#CARPACCIO,VITTORE
##Vittore Carpaccio 1472-1526 fl.
Vittore Carpaccio was born in Venice; his birthdate is uncertain probably 1450--1452, but he became active in 1472. Little is known of his early studies, but it is believed that he may have journeyed to the Near East and Dalmatia. As a young artist, Carpaccio was influenced by both Gentile Bellini and Giovanni Bellinin for whom he worked as an assistant in 1507. Carpaccio may have also been influenced by Giorgione. As Carpaccio continued his career, he kept small cards with the dates of each work, making the progress of his career clear. One of Carpaccio's most famous works is "The Legend of St. Ursula" (1490--1498 ca., the Accademia, Venice) This was a group of paintings for the Venetian Scuola di San Orsola. As a painter, Carpaccio is known for representing in exact detail the interiors and exteriors of houses, as well as for using light to its best advantage. Carpaccio's "St. George Killing the Dragon" is a fine example of his attention to detail. The foreshortening of the victim's bones was especailly masterful. Carpaccio's "Knight in a Landscape" may be the first example of full-length portraiture. Several of Carpaccio's large works for the Doges' Palace were destroyed in a fire in 1577.
$#CIMA DA CONEGLIANO,GIOVANNI BATTISTA
##Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano 1459-1517/18 ca.
Giovanni Cima da Conegliano was born in Conegliano, Veneto in about 1459. Cima travelled to Venice about 1492 and remained there for most of his life. He was highly influenced by Giovanni Bellini, and many of his paintings were actually imitations of that artist. One of the earliest of Cima's works, "Madonna of the Pergola" (1489), painted for San Bartolomeo in Vicenza and shows the influence of Bellini. Other works include a number of altarpieces, including "Sacred Conversation" (1493), "Baptism of Christ" (1494), and "St. Peter Martyr" (1509). Most of Cima's works were very serious in nature. Cima did some of his best work in the area of landscape, where he used a calm and peaceful manner infused with serene lighting. This can be seen in "Madonna of the Orange" (the Accademia, Venice)
$#COSSA,FRANCESCO DEL
##Francesco del Cossa 1435-1477 ca.
Francesco del Cossa was born in Ferrara. Cossa, along with Cosimo Tura and Ercole de'Roberti, is considered to be one of the leading 15th century Ferraese painters. All three painters are thought to have worked on the decoration of the Schifanoia Palace for the Duke of Ferrara between 1458 and 1478. Cossa was very displeased with the amount of money given to him for this work, and left Ferrara to go to Bologna, where he spent the rest of his life. Cossa painted three frescos at the Palace, "March, April and May", as well as some of the signs of the zodiac such as "Aries, Taurus and Gemini". He also painted mythological scenes, including "Minerva, Venus and Apollo." In Bologna, Cossa also did some stained-glass windows. Paintings by Cossa include "Anunciation" (1474), "St. Vincent Ferrer", and "St. Florian and St. Lucy" (the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.) Cossa's light-hearted Schifanoia frescos are painted with brilliant sharp color and include playful animals. $#MELOZZO DA FORLI
##Melozzo da Forli 1438-1494
Melozzo da Forli was born in Forli, near Bologna. His real name was Michelozzo degli Ambrogi. He was trained by Piero della Francesca, and spent most of his career in Loretto, Urbino and Rome. His great contribution to painting was the technique called "extreme foreshortening" or "sotto in su". Melozzo painted frescos in the church of San Marco in Rome (1465--1470); "Redeemer", "St. Mark and the Pope", and "St. Mark the Evangelist" were some of the frescos completed there. Many of Melozzo's works have only survived as fragments, and the dome of San Biagio at Forli (1493--1494 ca.), was destroyed during World War II. "Sixtus IV Founding the Vatican Library" (1474, the Vatican, Rome) is considered one of Melozzo's masterpieces. Another famous work is "Ascension" (1478-80), most of which has been destroyed. Melozzo died in Forli.
$#FOPPA,VINCENZO
##Vincenzo Foppa 1427/30-1515-16
Vincenzo Foppa was born in Breschia between 1427 and 1430. It is believed that he was a pupil of Squarcione, who was the teacher of Mantegna. It is also thought that he was influenced by Stefano da Verona and Jacopo Bellini. Foppa worked in Genoa, Milan, Pavia and Brescia as well as in Lombardy. He is considered the leading painter in Lombardy until Leonardo. He is also considered the founder of the Milanese school of painting. The frescos in the Portinari Chapel of Santa Eustorgia were done by Foppa in 1468. In addition to Leonardo, Bramante was a later influence on Foppa. The "Ephiphany" (the National Gallery, London), the "Crucifixion", and the "Orzinuovi Standard" (1514 the Chiesa dei Morti, Orzinuovi), are examples of Foppa's work.
$#GHIBERTI,LORENZO
##Lorenzo Ghiberti 1378-1455
Lorenzo Ghiberti was born in Florence. He left Florence in 1400 but returned in 1401 to win a design competition the second pair of bronze doors for the Bapistry in Florence. It is from these doors, and another set of doors for the same project, that Ghiberti achieved fame. Ghiberti won the contest from six other participants, including the sculptor Brunelleschi (who, because of losing, worked in architecture from that point on). The doors themselves, portray scenes from the New Testament, consist of twenty-eight panels and took twenty one years to complete. After finishing the first pair of doors, Ghiberti was awarded a commission for a second pair. The second set of doors used the Old Testament for its subjects and had only ten panels compared to the twenty eight of the first set. In the meantime, Ghiberti's style had changed. In the second pair, the Renaissance influence is apparent, both in the relief and in the perspective. Although Ghiberti was not supposed accept other commisions while producing the doors, he did, in fact, do other projects. These included two large statues, one of St. John the Baptist (1414) and one of St. Matthew (1419-22). As a sculptor, Ghiberti linked the Trecento Gothic and Renaissance styles, and he was also a goldsmith, writer and architect. He was the first artist to write his own autobiography, which he published within a work called "Commentarii". Michelangelo called Ghiberti's second set of doors the "Doors to Paradise", a name by which they are still known.
$#LAURANA (OR DELLAOURANA), LUCIANUS
##Luciano da Laurana 1420/5-1479 ca.
Luciano da Laurana was born in Zadar, Dalmatia. He was commissioned to work on the palace for Duke Federigo da Montefeltro, a commission which became Laurana's masterpiece. Laurana gave the palace the character of both a fortress and a country home. Part of the changes to the palace included a majestic inner courtyard, and the apartments which were unusually large and suitable for receptions. In 1472, the work was interrupted by the Duchess Battista Sforza's work; it was later completed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Laurana was also responsible for re-doing the fortress at Pesaro.
$#LOMBARDO (OR LOMBARDI),PIETRO
##Pietro Lombardo 1435-1515 ca.
Pietro Lombardo was born in Carona, in Lombardy. Lombardo and his two sons, Antonio and Tullio, were the premier Venetian sculptors during the last part of the fifteenth and the first part of the sixteenth centuries. Lombardo's early style shows strong Florentine influences, and is believed by critics to be evidence of time spent in Florence. Since he is not mentioned until 1464, there is no means of verification. Lombardo's Florentine flair is evident in the tombs built for the doge Marcello in 1485. Lombardo also designed Dante's tomb in Ravenna. Lombardo also owed some success to his architectural designs, the chief one being the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice (1480--1489).
$#MASEGNE,PIER PAOLA AND JACOBELLO
Jacobello and Pier Paola Masegne d. c. 1409 and d. c. 1403
Little is known of the early years of Jacobello and Pier Paola Masegne. Called collectively, "Dalle Masegne", their work is documented between the years 1383 and 1409. These two brothers were architects and sculptors in Venice during the late Gothic period. The tomb of Giovanni da Legnano (1383, the Museo Civico, Bologna) which they designed and built is their earliest known and recorded work. Nino Pisano influenced the brothers during and after the time they were in Venice. They designed the high altar in the church of Santo Francesco in Bologna (1388--1392), and their best known work is the choir screen for St. Marks in Venice; it shows the Virgin and twelve Apostles sculpted in a new, simple, refined style. The brothers travelled to Milan in 1399 to design the new cathedral, but the brothers went their separate ways when Jacobello was asked to work on the Castello Visconteo at Pavia. Pier Paola returned to Venice in 1400, and executed several designs including that of "Virgin and Child", done for the funerary monument of Doge Antonio Venier. Pier was also commissioned to design windows on the facade of the Doges' Palace in 1402. During this time, Jacobello had stayed in Milan. He lived and worked for six years after his brother's death.
$#MATTEO DI GIOVANNI DI BARTOLO,(MATTEO DA SIENA)
##Giovanni di Matteo 1430-1495 ca.
Giovanni di Matteo (not to be confused with Giovanetti Matteo) was a Sienese painter who studied under Vecchietta. He was also strongly influenced by Donatello and the Pollaiuoli. This influence can be seen in "Assumption of the Virgin" (1475, the National Gallery, London). His also painted "Madonna and Child with Two Saints" (1490 ca., the Barber Institute, Birmingham, England). The marble inlaid floor at the Siena Cathedral was designed by Mattio.
$#PAOLO DA VENEZIA,(MAESTRO PAOLO)
##Paolo da Venezia 1333--1362 fl.
Paolo da Venezia was born in Venice and was the father of two sons, Giovanni and Luca, who both followed in their father's footsteps as painters. Paolo is considered to be the prime painter of Byzantine art in the fourteenth century. He was influenced by Italian art as well as by Byzantine art. Paolo's earliest dated work, "Coronation of the Virgin" (1324, the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.), was also signed by Paolo's son Giovanni. The latest known painting by Paolo is dated 1358 and is a different version of the same subject; it now hangs in the Frick Collection, also in New York. Paolo and his two sons all signed the cover which was made for the Paliotto, the "Pala d'Oro", done in 1345 for St. Mark's in Venice.
$#ROBERTI,ERCOLE DE'
##Ercole d'Antonio de'Roberti 1456-1496 ca.
Ercole d'Antonio de'Roberti was born in Ferrara, Italy. He, Tura, and his teacher Francesco del Cossa, were the geniuses of the Quattrocento, Roberti was the Court Painter to the Este family in Ferrara. He did several frescos in 1470 with Cossa, and later the two went to Bologna. The "Pieta" (the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), is probably Roberti's most famous piece. The companion portraits "Giovanni II Bentivoglio" and "Ginevra Bentivoglio" now hang in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. His decorative works have disappeared.
$#ROSSELLINO,BERNARDO
##Bernardo Rossellino 1409-1464
Bernardo Rossellino was born in Florence. He taught both of his brothers, Antonio and Desiderio. The tomb of Leonardo Bruni, who was Chancellor of Florence (1445--1450 ca.) is considered Bernardo's finest work. Between 1435 and 1454 Bernardo did extensive work in the field of funerary monuments. He was also an assistant to Leon Battista Alberti's, and built the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence (1446-53) to Alberti's specifications. Washington, D.C.
$#SANGALLO,GIULIANO DA
##Giulano Da Sangallo 1445-1516
Giulano Da Sangallo was born in Florence. Giulano was one of three artists in the family: his brother Antonio and their nephew Antonio Picconi were also artists. Although Giulano started as a cabinetmaker and sculptor, he was considered to be one of the most gifted masters of the late quattrocento by the end of his career. He was inspired by Brunelleschi's arhitecture. His expertise is shown in many of his works, from the tombs of Sassetti (1491, the Sassetti Chapel, Florence), to the design of the church of "Madonna of the Prisons" (Prato), and the villa designed for the Lorenzo de' Medici family in Poggio. Giulano was also an excellent draftman, as can be seen in his illustrated copy of Dante's "Divine Comedy", now located in Rome at the Biblioteca Vallicelliana.
$#SASSETTA,STEFANO DI GIOVANNI
##Stefano di Giovanni Sassetta 1392-1450
Stefano Sassetta was born in either Asciano or Cortona. Little is known about his early life, except that he was trained in the late fourteenth century Sienese traditions. His first known work, "The Madonna of the Snow" (1432,the Contini Bonacossi Collection,Florence). Between 1425 and 1450 Sassetta was given many commissions. Although he was trained in the Sienese style, the influence of the International Gothic style is also evident in his paintings. Sassetta's works include "St. Thomas Aquinas Praying" ( the National Gallery, Budapest), "Vision of St. Thomas" (the Vatican), "Virgin and Child" and "Mystic Marriage of St. Francis". $#SQUARCIONE,FRANCESCO
##Francesco Squarcione 1397-1468
Francesco Squarcione was born in Padua. There are not many details on Squarcione's life, but he is known for the many pupils who trained in his workshop. They include Mantegna, Zoppo, Pizzo, Cosmo and Tura. There are only two works which have definitely been attributed to Squarcione: a polyptych done between 1449 and 1452 and a signed "Madonna" which is now located in Berlin.
$#VITTORIA,ALESSANDRO
##Alessandro Vittoria 1525-1608
Alessandro Vittoria was born in Trent. Prior to his move to Venice for experience in the workshop of Jacopo Sansovino, Vittoria had some early training in his hometown of Trent. He is considered a great master of sixteenth century Venetian sculpture, equal to or greater than Sansovino. The first work signed by Vittoria, "St. John the Baptist" (1550. at the Venetian church of San Zaccaria), was left unfinished. Vittoria collaborated with Sansovino on a huge statue of "Hercules", finishing that work for Sansovino. He also competed with Sansovino in a competition which was resolved when Sansovino commissioned Vittoria to do two figures for the door of the Libreia Vecchia in Venice (1555). Michelangelo was a strong influence on Vittoria. Vittoria also did a lot of work for the architect Andrea Palladio. From 1557 until he retired, Vittoria had a very large workshop where many artists received their training. He was a close friend of Titian and Tintoretto. Vittoria did many sculpted portraits of various individuals. One of the best examples is his own "Self-Portrait" (1602, tomb of Vittoria, San Zaccaria).
$#VIVARINI,ANTONIO
##Antonio Vivarini 1415-1476/84 ca.
Antonio Vivarini was the most famous of a family of Venetian painters including Antonio's brother's Bartolommeo Vivarini and Antonio's son Alvise Vivarini. His earliest signed work is dated 1440, and it appears that Antonio worked with Giovanni d'Alemagna, his brother-in-law, until about 1450, at which time he entered into a partnership with his own brother. The work accomplished by both of the partnerships shows strong influences by Fabriano, Mantegna and Bellini. There is one signed picture by Antonio in the Vatican.
$#VIVARINI,BARTOLOMMEO
##Bartolommeo Vivarini 1432-1499 ca.
Bartolommeo Vivarini was the brother of Antonio. There is a painting signed by Bartolommeo in the Louvre in Paris (1459).
$#ZOPPO,MARCO
##Marco Zoppo 1433-1478
It is thought that Marco Zoppo first trained under Tura, but then went to work with Squarcione at age twenty-one. In 1455, Squarcione adopted him as his son. Zoppo was a friend of Mantegna and worked in Bologna, Ferrara, Venice, and in Padua. His style has been compared to Tura's and Mantegna's; it can be seen in "The Cook Madonna", now located at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Bellini is also thought to have influenced Zoppo.
$#ANGELICO, FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE
##Angelica, Fra Giovanni da Fiesole 1400-1456 ca
Fra Angelico, often called Il Beato (The Blessed) by the Italians, was for about thirty years a monk in the monastery of San Marco, Florence. His name owes its high rank (among the painters of his time) to the religious sentiment of his work. Today, however, his innovative style, influenced by Masaccio, and his welcoming of the new ideas of the Renaissance are recognized as most important and influential on the course of Italian painting.
Characteristics.--His most frequent subjects represent the lowliness of soul of God's servants and the devout beauty of angels. His figures are peculiarly quiet; many have passive, folded hands. The motion of his angels, dancing in Paradise, is a most gentle motion, which in no way disturbs the draperies. His execution is elaborate, sometimes almost miniature-like in delicacy. His coloring is most pure and simple and has been little affected by time. His latest works in Orvieto and Rome show the influence of the dawning Renaissance in a better drawing of the figure.
$#ANTONELLO DA MESSINA
##Antonello da Messina 1430-1479 ca.
Antonello was born in Messina. His family were painters for generations under the name of the Antonio. His grandfather and uncle are mentioned in the "Momorie de' Pittori Messinesi", and his father, Salvadore d'Antonio, was an architect and painter. The latter was his first instructor, and sent him as a young man to Rome to complete his studies. From Rome he went to Palermo, and then he went to Messina, and painted (as is believed) at this time the "Virgin and Child", in tempera, on panel, now in the Museo Peloritano of that city. He next went to Naples, probably about 1438, and became the pupil of Colantonio del Fiore. Here he was exposed to the work of Van Eyck, Patrus, Christus and other Netherlandish artists, which influenced his own work. In Venice he was employed, and painted many portraits. His work shows him to have acquired Flemish finish and execution. From this time his Italian tendencies seemed to strengthen as his later works show. In 1465 Antonello returned to Messina, where he received pupils, the best of whom was his son or nephew, Salvo d'Antonio. About this time he executed his most important works. In 1473 he went again to Venice and received important commissions. He was at one time in Milan, but when is not precisely known. He was also in Treviso in 1490, but returned to Venice where his genius had its most profound and lasting influence on the next generation of great Italian painters, including Mantegna and Carpaccio.
$#BARTOLOMMEO, FRA (BACCIO DELLA PORTA)
##Fra Bartolommeo 1472-1517
Fra Bartolommeo (Bacio della Porta), born near Florence, was a monk in the monastery of San Marco, the same to which Fra Angelico belonged. He had already won considerable fame as a painter under his real name, "Baccio", when the shock produced by the martyrdom of his friend Savonarola caused him to renounce painting and enter the monastery, which he did under the name of Fra Bartolommeo. After six years of utter seclusion, at the urgent entreaty of friends, he resumed his brush. About this time Raphael visited Florence, became strongly attached to Bartolommeo, learned from him his method of coloring, and, in return, gave him instruction in drawing. Both artists seem to have profited by their friendship. Bartolommeo's rank among Italian painters is high, and he is considered a key figure of the Renaissance in Florence in the early 16th century.
Characteristics.--His composition is simple, almost architectural in its masses; his favorite form is the pyramid, within whose outline he has grouped few figures. Types of figures and faces tend to be abstract and contain little individuality. His figures are clothed with heavy masses of drapery, which is quite elaborate. He is said to have been the first artist to use the lay-figure. In many pictures of the Madonna little boy angels are introduced, sitting at her feet and playing musical instruments, or otherwise occupied in ministry. Raphael borrowed this fancy. His color is finer than usual with Florentine painters, but injured by the use of black pigment in shadows. His management of chiaroscuro shows the influence of Leonardo da Vinci.
$#BELLINI, GENTILE
##Gentile Bellini 1429-1507
Gentile Bellini, elder son as well as pupil of Jacopo Bellini, went from Padua to Venice as a young man and gained great honor in that city. When Sultan Mahomet applied to Venice for a good painter in 1479, Gentile was sent to Constantinople, where he painted a portrait of the Sultan. Upon returning to Venice he painted a series of large pictures in the Council Hall of the Ducal Palace, representing scenes in Venetian history, all of which were destroyed by the great fire of 1577.
Characteristics.--Gentile Bellini depicts in his work the contemporary life of Venice as has no other artist or historian. He represented the architectural Venice of his day and against it pictured processions and masses of people clad in rich costumes and painted in a careful, exact manner with full, warm, harmonious color.
$#BELLINI, GIOVANNI
##Giovanni Bellini 1430-1516 ca.
The natural son of Jacopo Bellini, Giovanni came to Venice from Padua as a boy. He spent the remainder of his long life there. He was taught by his father and became a greater painter than either his father (Jacopo) or his brother (Gentile). He was a continually growing artist, and painted his best pictures when aged. Mantegna (Paduan School) was his brother-in-law and friend, and some of his earlier pictures can hardly be distinguished from those of that master, while his later ones are filled with the perfection of beauty that marks the High Renaissance. He attained high rank as a portrait painter. He had many pupils, among them Giorgione and Titian. His work was influenced by Piero della Franesca, and it was during his lifetime that Antonello da Messina introduced the use of oil painting to Italy. His best and all his latest works are painted in oils.
Characteristics.--Subjects are mostly religious, and often have landscape backgrounds, for which he evinced great love. His figures possess much dignity and serenity; his best Madonnas are really majestic as they lift the "column of their throats" and hold forth the Divine Child to the worship of the world. His earlier works show a certain hardness: the drapery is angular; the anatomical joinings evident in hands and feet. In his later works all these defects disappear. His color is true Venetian, flooded with golden light. He paid great attention to the detail of costumes and also of landscape, picturing with fidelity the undulating forms of distant hills and all the minutiae of weeds and stones in the foreground.
$#BOTTICELLI, ALESSANDRO (SANDRO)
##Alessandro Botticelli 1444-1510 ca.
Alessandro Botticelli called Botticelli from the name of a goldsmith to whose service he was bound when a boy, was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, and is one of the most important among the fifteenth-century painters. Botticelli was closely associated with the Medici and his fortune paralleled theirs. The death of Lorenzo ended the world in which Botticelli had found honors and fame. Before him the old masters had drawn the inspiration for their works from the Bible; the great mass of pictures had been painted in the service of the church. Botticelli's nature was imaginative: he delighted in myths, fables, and poetry, and freely introduced into his painting all kinds of fanciful creations. Others were beginning to widen the field of art a little, but Botticelli was the first to step boldly forth and make his painting a means for the delight of the secular as well as the religious world. He was a leader in the great movement in the history of art in Florence that led to the protest by Savonarola against the "corrupting influence" as he called it and "of profane pictures". He became an ardent disciple of this great prophet. When Savonarola demanded that bonfires should be made of these "profane" works of art, Botticelli contributed many of his pictures to the burning pile.
Characteristics.--While Masaccio had taken a long step in advance of former artists by making humanity rather than events the chief center of interest in his works, Botticelli pictured not merely humanity, but also human feelings. We see this particularly in his sad-faced Madonnas, whose expressions seem born of a prophetic sorrow, sometimes further denoted by the introduction of the crown of thorns into the picture; it is also seen in the eager, sympathetic countenances of those who surround her. He created a type of face and figure that is most easily recognizable. His figures are unusually tall and graceful, often shown through almost transparent garments; the limbs are slender, the hands long and nervous. His faces are long and thin, with prominent, round chins and very full lips. His style of painting shows early training in the goldsmith's shop; he loved to elaborate with gold-painted embroideries and jewelry, and even gilded the lights upon the heavy locks of hair. His representation of figures in motion is far beyond anything that preceded him and has never been excelled.
$#BRUNELLESCHI, FILIPPO
##Filippo Brunelleschi 1377-1446
Filippo Brunelleschi, born in Florence, was a great architect who is known as the father of the Renaissance. His father, Filippo Lapi, intended him to be a lawyer or physician, but his love for mechanical pursuits was so great that he was placed with a goldsmith. He gradually came to be an architect and was the first Florentine who applied geometrical rules of the ancient Greeks to that branch of art. Masaccio and Benedetto da Majano profited by his example in the application of the rules of perspective to their pictures and mosaics. It is said that Brunelleschi spent much time in Rome studying the remains of ancient architecture and making drawings from them. In 1420 the Signoria of Florence called together the architects of all countries, to consider the completion of the dome of the Cathedral. Brunelleschi presented himself, armed with well-digested plans, and, although sneered at and opposed, the work was at length committed to him. He completed it, and, in spite of great trials and hindrances of every possible kind, he produced one of the greatest and boldest masterpieces of the world in any age. The church of San Lorenzo (1425) is a specimen of his designs; the Capella Pazzi, in the courts of Santa Croce, is a proof of his ability to design the graceful and elegant. The Badia of Fiesole, and the Hospital of the Innocenti are also fine examples of his work. In secular architecture he excelled, as may be seen in the Palazzo Pitti.. Brunelleschi was also a sculptor and a worker in bronze.
$#CASTAGNO, ANDREA DEL
##Andrea Del Castagno 1423-1457
Andrea del Castagno painted pictures full of force and energy, which give evidence of considerable study of the human figure. He excelled in showing movement and expression, and his work is characterized by vigorous drawing. They mark a step in the gradual evolution of Florentine art, since each figure seems distinct with individual character. Major works include "The Crucifixion with Saints" and "The Last Supper", both at the Church St. Appollonia, and the completion of "Scenes from the Life of the Virgin" left unfinished by Domenico Veneziano whom Andrea was falsely believed until the last century to have murdered.
$#CAVALLINI, PIETRO
##Pietro Cavallini 1250-1330 ca.
Cavallini was a leading painter at the end of the 13th century and beginning of the 14th century and was comparable in importance to Cimabue and Duccio. It is certain that in 1308 he was employed by Robert of Naples, but his works of that time do not exist, or are unknown. He was a pupil or follower of Giotto, and had probably been instructed by the Cosneati. The oldest of his surviving works in Rome is the mosaic in the apse of St. Maria in Trastevere depicting six scenes from "The Life of the Virgin". At San Grisogono, at Rome, there is a mosaic, undoubtedly his, which represents the Virgin enthroned, with the Child giving the benediction; Saints James and Chrysogonus are also in the same work. Perhaps his most important work is "The Last Judgment" in the Church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere. His expressive and real faces imbue his work with great power and poetry.
$#PIERO DI COSIMO
##Piero di Cosimo 1462-1521
Piero di Cosimo was a pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, and accepted his Master's name. Although little is known about his life, about 50 paintings are attributed to him, including the altarpieces and devotional paintings. The influence of Filippino Lippi is clear in his early work, and as later works show the signs of Leonardo in the use of color, as well as Raphael's use of space and composition. Though his work reflects diverse influence, Piero was an artist of brilliant imagination and originality, and in his work he reworked impressions and made them his own. His unique character is especially clean and unravelled in his secular works. He was a painter of great originality and was the first real landscapist among the Florentines, and placed some of his mythical scenes in the midst of truly delightful landscapes. He painted the background in Cosimo Roselli's fresco, "Sermon on the Mount", in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. He was also a portrait painter of considerable note.
$#CRIVELLI, CARLO
##Carlo Crivelli 1430-1495 ca.
Carlo Crivelli was born in Venice. His earliest known work is dated 1468, and his latest, 1495. He was one of the best of the tempera painters of Venice. His pictures were well executed. He was fond of painting garlands of flowers or fruit on gold grounds as ornaments to his pictures;there was a certain rigidity in his representation of these items. When his works are chronologically studied, one can see obvious changes in his manner. The honor of knighthood was conferred on Crivelli in 1490 by Prince Ferdinand of Capua. A "Pieta" of 1493 was his best and probably last work. He had much talent. His works were very numerous, and are in many collections and in the churches of Massa and other places.
$#LEONARDO DA VINCI
##Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519
Leonardo da Vinci was born in Vinci, in the Val d'Arno, below Florence, and is considered to be one of the greatest masters in the history of painting. He was a pupil of Andrea del Verrocchio. Leonardo has been well called a "universal genius." He was painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. He had a thorough knowledge of anatomy, mathematics, astronomy, and botany, and also was a poet and musician. It was his greatest delight to study the growth of plant life, the hidden laws that govern the mineral world, the movement of planets in the heavens, -- and this love for the deep things of nature he carried into his study of art. It is said that he always wore a sketchbook attached to his girdle, and would wander through the streets of Florence looking for some especially picturesque figure or some face possessing unusual subtlety of expression. He would excite the mirth of peasants so that he could study the line of their laughing faces. It is also said that he even followed criminals to their painful death so that he might gain some new experience that would aid his art. In this way he laid the foundation for the most eminent characteristics of his work. Yet, from the study of Leonardo's life, we must judge that he enjoyed more this study in and for itself than for its results, for he was never satisfied with his experiences when included them into one of his pictures. He was a most devoted and happy student and a most dissatisfied painter. Over and over again would he paint and then destroy his work. It is to this characteristic that the small number of his existing pictures is due. When Leonardo was about thirty, he went to Milan, where he worked, both in sculpture and painting, in the service of the reigning duke. He became master of the Milanese or Lombard school of painting. After many years of work he returned to Florence, and there, at one time, entered into a competition with Michelangelo in the decoration of the two end walls of the great Hall of the Council Palazzo Vechio. Leonardo chose for his subject "The Defeat of the Milanese by the Florentines at Anghiari"; Michelangelo chose "Pisan Soldiers Called Suddenly to Arms While Bathing in the Arno." The cartoons produced by the two masters mark an important epoch in Italian art. In them we find for the first time the human figure treated with all the truth and splendid fulness of expression of the High Renaissance. Neither picture was completed. A part of Leonardo's cartoon, called "The Battle of the Standard", is now known by an engraving after a copy by Rubens.
Characteristics.--In the latter half of the fifteenth century all the great principles which underlie the art of representation had been mastered. Each great preceding painter had made some important contribution to the general knowledge, until the artist found himself fully equipped for his work. Leonardo's greatest gift to painting was a perfected chiaroscuro. His treatment of this was a revelation to his contemporaries and followers, with his melting and mysterious shadows, and the bewitching way he illuminates his work with light. He used to say to his pupils, "Be as careful for the light in your picture as you would be of a rare jewel". His work shows how well he followed his own precept. His composition, seen at its best in the "Last Supper" was unsurpassed. His drawing is done extremely carefully, and his lines express wonderfully the subtlety of form. His color is clear and silvery, but has suffered very much from his habit of experimenting with technique. He used oils and painted and repainted, touched and retouched infinitely. His backgrounds show a mannerism that seems to have followed him from the studio of his master, Verrocchio: rocks and dark trees and running water, with diffused twilight mark nearly every one of his works. His ideal woman's face has dark eyes and hair, a long, slender nose, and a somewhat pointed chin, and is marked by a peculiar, languid, subtle smile, as is shown in his masterpiece, the "Mona Lisa".
$#DADDI, BERNARDO
##Bernardo Daddi 1280-1348 ca.
Bernardo Daddi was born at Arezzo, and became one of the leading Florentine painters. Some of his works remain in Florence, and his name is among those who approved the original statutes for the founding of the Compagni of Florence. The object of this society was the meeting together of artists to afford each other assistance, and to thank God for the prospered state of art at that time. It seems to have been largely a religious institution, and assembled in a chapel of Saint Maria Nuova. His work shows the influence of Giotto, and a certain affinity for the Sienese style of painting though no link is known for certain. Among the many works attributed to Bernardo are the frescoes of the "Martyrdom of SS. Lawrence and Stephen" in Santa Croce, Florence, and the polyptych with "The Crucifixion" and eight saints; dated the year of his death, 1348.
$#DOMENICO VENEZIANO
##Domenico Veneziano 1405-1461 ca.
Domenico Veneziano was possibly born in Venice, but little is known of his early years. During four centuries Castagno, on Vasari's authority, bore the terrible accusation of having been the murderer of Veneziano through envy of the praises bestowed on the latter because of the beautiful results of his painting in the oil medium, which at this time, was being gradually introduced into Italy. It has, however, been conclusively proved that Veneziano did not die until several years after his alleged murderer. With regard to the use of oils, it is unlikely that Domenico was solely responsible for their introduction. His major contribution is in his lyrical use of color, a style which would influence and be formative for his greatest follower, Piero della Francesca. Though one of the outstanding personalities of his time, Domenico was not in the mainstream of painters in Florence, dominated at the time by Filippo Lippi and Andrea del Castagno. Very few pictures by Veneziano are now in existence. Of his few surviving works, the "Tabernacle of the Carnesecchi" in the London National Gallery, two versions of the "Virgin and Child," and the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child" painted for the church of S. Lucia de Magnoli (now in the Uffizi), are the most important.
$#DONATELLO, DONATO DI BETTO BARDI
##Donatello di Betto Bardi 1386-1466 ca.
Donatello (Donato di Betto Bardi) began his career assisting Ghiberti with the bronze doors for the Florentine Baptistry.. This sculptor was a close imitator of nature. He seemed careless of mere beauty, and his works are striking for their marked difference from those of his predecessors, especially in that he defined the forms beneath his draperies, made it possible to believe that the folds concealed the human figure. His work contained a powerful sense of movement, as in his marble statue of "St. George," and he became famous for the technique of "relievo schiaceiato" (flat relief) which he developed. Donatello was a giant among sculptors in Florence during the Quattrocento, and his influence on the early Renaissance in Italy is undisputed. Individualistic and dedicated, he invested his work with an overpowering sense of life and driving spirit. Donatello was buried in the Church of San Lorenzo with great pomp. His resting-place was near that of Cosimo de' Medici, so that, as he said, "his body might be near him when dead, as his spirit had ever been near him when in life."
$#GENTILE DA FABRIANO
##Gentile da Fabriano 1370-1427
Gentile da Fabriano's work represents one of the highest expressions of the International Gothic style. Gentile combined a passionate realism with luxuriously ornamented details, embroidered garments, tapestries, rich costumes and gold background in his work, with the inventiveness of a tireless experimenter. His most important works include the "Adoration of the Magi," now in the Uffizi, the polyptych for the church of Valle Romita (now in the Brera), including "Scenes of the Coronation of the Virgin with Four Saints," and the "Quaratesi Polyptych. A number of his works were lost or destroyed. Gentile represented a sophisticated, courtly tradition and though Florentine art would not be significantly influenced by him, he was greatly respected there as an artist.
$#FOPPA, VINCENZO
##Vincenzo Foppa 1427-1515 ca.
Vincenzo Foppa was born in Brescia and afterward lived in Milan, where he was court painter to the Duke. It is probable that he studied in the school of Squarcione. His works show the same study of the antique, the same taste for classic architecture and gilt studio ornament that are found in the early Paduan School. They were also marked good outline drawing and by an unusual energy of expression, sometimes carried almost to the grotesque. His drawings have often been attributed to Mantegna (Paduan School), whose work influenced his own, particularly in perspective and modeling. His major works include a "Crucifixion" (Bergamo Gallery), fresco cycles in S. Eustorgio, Milan, and S. Maria del Carmine, Brescia, and the "Martyrdom of S. Sebastian," Castello Sforzesco, Milan.
$#PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA
##Piero della Francesca 1416-1492 ca.
Piero della Francesca was born in Borgo San Sepolcro at the beginning of the Quattrocento, and was one of the greatest Italian painters of that century. He is distinguished for having advanced the study of perspective. He began his career assisting Domenico Veneziano with the frescoes in the Church of S. Egidio in Florence (now almost completely lost, and his early work shows strongly an affinity with Masaccio. His masterpiece is the fresco in the Choir of the church of S. Francesco in Arezzo depicting the "Legend of the True Cross," in which he blended the human presence into precise perspective backgrounds, an accomplishment of supreme importance for painting in Italy. He is famous as a writer on higher mathematics and the laws of perspective as well as painter. He was one of the artists invited to Rome by Pope Nicholas V., whose works in the Vatican were destroyed in order to make room for the frescoes of Raphael.
In addition to the frescoes in S. Francesco, one of the monuments of the Italian Renaissance, Piero's major works include the altarpiece "Our Lady of Mercy with Saints" with the "Annunciation" and the Crucifixion" (Borgo, Pin.), "Flagellation of Christ (Urbino, G.N.), the great "Diptych of the Duke of Urbino" (Uffizi). Piero della Francesca's new vision of volume in space, perspective and light would influence many contemporary artists as well as those to follow, including Perugino, Raphael, Antonello da Messina and Giovanni Bellini.
$#GADDI, TADDEO DI GADDO
##Taddeo Gaddi 1334-1366 ca
Taddeo Gaddi was the most important and constant of Giotto's pupils, with whom he was associated for over twenty years. He imitated Giotto very closely, though he never equalled him. Indeed, the great number of Giotto's pupils were always behind their master in the best qualities of his art. Gaddi's early work was his best, showing how much owed to the direct influence of Giotto. He differed from his master in the length and attention that he often gave to the limbs of his figures, and his tendency to add greater variety to background style and content. His major works include scenes from the "Life of Christ" in the Florentine Academy, and his remarkable "Pieta" (Yale University, Art Museum). Many frescoes formerly attributed to this artist are now lost.
$#GADDI, GADDO DI ZANOBI
##Gaddo di Zanobi Gaddi 1239-1312
Gaddi was the father of Taddeo, and the first of a prominent family of Florentine painters. He was a friend of Cimabue, whom he survived by twelve years. He was also a friend of Andrea Tafi and a worker in mosaics. Vasari speaks of many of his works, both paintings and mosaics, but the only remaining ones that can be attributed to him are some mosaics in the portico of Saint Maria Maggiore, in Rome, which were executed in 1308, and possibly others in the cathedrals of Florence and Pisa, and in the Baptistery at Florence.
$#GHIBERTI, LORENZO DI BARTOLO
##Lorenzo di Bartolo Ghiberti 1378-1455
Lorenzo di Bartolo Ghiberti was born in Florence. A goldsmith and sculptor, he also painted some pictures at Rimini, where he fled from the plague in 1398. He is best known by his bronze gates to the Baptistery of Florence, which Michelangelo thought "worthy to be the gate of Paradise," which is known by that name and have never been surpassed in some respects. There was much controversy as to who should obtain the honor of making these gates, and after Ghiberti received it, he spent twenty years on the first, and as much more time on the last. It is easy to see in them the marks of the goldsmith's minute and finished manner, but Ghiberti introduced a new feature in bas-relief when he attempted to represent distance in background. In beautiful ornamentation, and perfect form and finish of all minor parts, he has never been surpassed. Ghiberti also made three statues for the Church of Orsanmichele; two bas-reliefs for the Cathedral of Siena, and the Sarcophagus of Saint Zenobius, in Santa Maria del Fiore, of Florence. He was a leading figure in Florence for fifty years, establishing a formative workshop.
$#GHIRLANDAIO, DOMENICO BIGORDI
##Domenico Bigordi Ghirlandaio 1449-1494
Domenico Ghirlandaio. (Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi) was born in Florence. It is said that his father was a goldsmith, who made such exquisite garlands for the hair that he was called Ghirlandaio (the garland-twiner), which name descended to his children. There are certain characteristics of Domenico's pictures which might result from a knowledge of the goldsmith's art, such as precision in drawing, the modelling of figures, and the arrangement of drapery. Ghirlandaio was said to be a pupil of Alessio Baldovinetti, and became a mosaicist and the most celebrated fresco painter of his generation. They plainly show the advance from his earlier to his best manner: he introduced in his pictures the portraits of celebrated and important personages of his time, and was original in many ways. His life is a landmark in the history of Florentine art. His special greatness is in composition. He preferred large spaces, and worked in the old system of tempera. His portrait figures were not the actors in the scene represented, but he placed them, generally, in detached groups. This gave a solemn effect, and are comparable in their relation to the picture, to the chorus in a Greek tragedy. In the technicalities of these fresco-painting he excelled, and his works were highly finished. Ghirlandaio was the master of Michelangelo. Very little is of the mosaics which he executed, although he called mosaic work "painting for eternity." Major works include "St. Jerome" and the "Last Supper" in the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, the frescoes in the Sala dei Gigli in the Palazzo Vecchio, and the "Adoration of the Magi" now in the Uffizi.
$#GIOTTO DI BONDONE
##Giotto di Bondone 1276-1336
Giotto di Bondone was born in Vespignano. According to the legend, when tending his flock, Giotto was accustomed to draw on the large, flat stones, and while thus employed, Cimabue came upon him, was filled with admiration of his work, and obtained the consent of his father to his taking him to be his pupil. Though this is probably merely a story, it is entirely possible that Giotto did study with Cimabue in Florence. Giotto became a painter, sculptor, and architect. Giotto drew his inspiration from nature, and he is generally regarded as the father of modern painting. His principal works were his fresco paintings, the masterpiece of which is the series of paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Giotto's ideas of space and perspective in architectural backgrounds, his placement of figures and use of gesture, all served to lead art in Italy from the Byzantine world into the western Gothic period. At the time of his death, Giotto had been architect and master of Santa Maria del Fiore two years. He was buried there, and afterwards a monument was erected to him upon which his portrait was carved by Benedetto da Maiano.
$#BENOZZO GOZZOLI
##Benozzo Gozzoli 1420-1498
Benozzo Gozzoli (Benozzi di Lese Sandro) was a pupil of Fra Angelico, whom he assisted in his work in the Cathedral at Orvieto, and whose style of painting he at first quite faithfully followed. His early pictures show much of the tender grace and ideal beauty of Angelico. Later he was influenced by the works of Masaccio, and turning wholly from the ideality of his former master, seems to have revelled in the study of nature and real life. His landscape backgrounds are filled with villas, trees, vines, fruit, and flowers, and are animated with herds of cattle, deer, hares, dogs and birds. He loved to tell stories by his pictures, and introduced many portraits, some of which are admirably treated; indeed, so close to nature is much of his painting of portrait heads, that by some writers he has been called the "Florentine Holbein."
$#LIPPI, FILLIPPINO
##Filippino Lippi 1457-1504 ca.
Filippino Lippi, son of Fra Filippo Lippi and pupil of Botticelli, had the honor of having completed the series of frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, Florence, begun by Masolino and carried on by Masaccio. He ranks with Botticelli and Ghirlandaio in importance.
Characteristics.--His works are noted for high sentiment, grace, and beauty, rather than for strength of conception or rendering. His early work in the Brancacci chapel resembles Masaccio's, while it is sometimes difficult to distinguish some of his later painting from that of Botticelli. His work lacked the nervous energy seen in much of Botticelli's work. His faces are particularly sweet in expression. He liked to embellish his figures, in easel pictures especially, with varied draperies, headdresses, etc. Major works include the "Adoration of the Magi," and "Scenes from the Life of Esther" (London), the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints and a Donor," and the fresco cycle, "Scenes from the Lives of St. Philip and St. John the Evangelist" (Church of S. Maria Novella, Florence).
$#LIPPI, FRA' FILIPPO
##Fra Filippo Lippi 1406-1469
Lippi Fra Filippo, the painter to whose name so much of romance and scandal clings, was influenced by both Fra Angelico and Masaccio, and blended the ideal of one with the real of the other. A lay brother at the Carmelite Abbey in Florence, he ran away with a nun (whose marriage the Pope legalized subsequently), and had one son, Filippino, who also became a painter. He established his reputation with three works: the "Barbadori Altarpiece" (Louvre); the "Coronation of the Virgin" (Uffizi); and the "Annunciation" (S. Lorenzo which best illustrate his early Florentine style. One of the most original and personal of his works is the lyrical "Madonna and Child" (Uffizi).
Characteristics: His works are marked by a stately composition and fine, golden color. The faces he painted are short and broad, with very wide jaws, and are marked by a grave but decidedly youthful expression. His Madonnas usually wear a delicate, filmy headdress, which was an adornment of the Florentine ladies of his time. His angels are lusty, merry-faced boys.
$#LORENZETTI (OR LAURATI), AMBROGIO
##Ambrogio Lorenzetti 1332-1348 fl.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti is among the most noted Sienese artists of the fourteenth century. His work is much more advanced and vigorous than that of Duccio and Martini, and resembles that of Giotto more than does any other Sienese painting. One of the most original artists of the fourteenth century, Ambrogio was a painter of the Sienese school, and brother of the painter Pietro Lorenzetti. His most famous works are the large fresco allegories, "Good Government" and "Bad Government" in the Palazzo Publico in Siena. They are particularly notable for Ambrogio's experimental depiction of space, and the forcefulness and inventiveness of their characterization and realism. His "Presentation in the Temple" (Uffizi) is one of the major works of the fourteenth century.
$#LORENZO MONACO, PIERO DI GIOVANNI
##Lorenzo Monaco 1370-1425 ca.
Lorenzo Monaco (Piero di Giovanni), born in Sienna, was a monk and belonged to the monastery called degli Angioli, in Florence. His early works follow Giotto in style, but later he united with the realism of the school of Giotto much of the idealism and religious fervor of expression for which Fra Angelico (his contemporary) is noted, and his works reflect the style of the International Gothic. . His execution is very tender and careful; his color pure and harmonious. His works include the diptych "Christ on the Mount of Olives" (Louvre), the "Coronation of the Virgin" Altarpiece and the "Adoration of the Magi" (both in the Uffizi), and the fresco cycle of the "Life of the Virgin" and the "Annunciation Altarpiece" of S. Trinita, Florence.
$#MANTEGNA, ANDREA
##Andrea Mantegna 1431-1506
Andrea Mantegna was adopted by Squarcione and registered as his foster-child in 1441. At the age of seventeen, he painted a much-admired Madonna for the Church of Santa Sophia. It is evident from the early efforts of Mantegna that he studied the works of other masters from Squarcione, his instructor. The earliest picture of his which is so preserved as to show his manner, is an altar-piece in the Brera, representing Saint Luke and other saints. This was executed in 1454, and is excellent in modeling, light and shade; it has a northern realism, but is far superior to most Squarcionesques, and equal in color to any tempera painting of Venice of the same time. After 1448 he worked on the chapel of Saints Jacopo and Christoforo in the Church of Eremitani at Padua. The whole left side, with the "Life of Saint Jacobo, " and the "Martyrdom of Saint Cristoforo", is his work. For his age and the state of Paduan art they are wonderful, although the some critics of Squarcione said that his figures were statuesque and lifeless. Mantegna had become disaffected towards his foster-father, had married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, and fully sympathized with the faction opposed to Squarcione. He had no doubt been much affected by the influence of Donatello at Padua; he had studied the antique as much as possible and imitated it in his architecture and figures. But the "Martyrdom of Saint Cristoforo" shows that he had discovered his mistake, and strangely displays his attempt to remedy his greatest fault. These works made him famous, and the Marquis of Mantua used every inducement to persuade him to leave Padua. But he was occupied with some pictures for San Zeno at Verona. The Marquis persistently followed Mantegna, and at length about 1460 he entered his service, in which he continued until his death. The Marquis required all kinds of work of him, from the most sacred subjects to turkeys. In the old castle two rooms remain decorated by Mantegna. An inscription in one gives the date of 1474. The subjects are full of grace and life. The achievements of Hercules, busts of Roman emperors, and a strutting peacock, with beautiful heads of women and children regarding it, are a part of them; and in the center he represented a great aperture through which, apparently, the blue sky is seen. Sometime in 1483, after a change in government and the death of his patron earlier, he found new a patron in the Duchess of Este. At length in 1488 he was sent to Rome to paint a chapel in the Vatican for Innocent VIII, whose request the Marquis could not refuse. Here he labored unceasingly for two years. He then resumed the "Triumphs of Caesar", in which he had been interrupted, and in 1491 the Marquis made him new presents of land as a reward for these excellent works. From this time his works all show the presence of his assistants. It was not, however, until 1495 that he produced his famous "Madonna della Vittoria",. He painted until his death, but he suffered much sorrow and loss in his later years. Mantegna was doubtless the greatest painter of Northern Italy in his day, and his influence was felt in all Italy. His works are full of meaning; his inventive powers were large; his foreshortening, perspective, chiaroscuro, and color were excellent. He also painted what may be called reliefs, or pictures in chiaroscuro, and was besides a good engraver. He was early in the practice of this art, and his knowledge of design greatly assisted him to excel.
$#SIMONE DI MARTINO, (SIMONE MARTINI)
##Simone Martini 1283-1344 ca.
Probably a student of Duccio, Simone Martini was born in Siena and his works would have a considerable effect on the development of the Siena School into the fifteenth century. He achieved a stylistic balance between the Gothic and what would become the International Gothic, with the optical depth and original ideas of space and elegant detail. His works include the "Holy Martyr" (Ottawa, N.G.), the "Polyptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints and Prophets" (Pisa), and his masterpiece, the cycle of frescoes in the Lower Church of Assisi, "Scenes from the Life of St. Martin."
$#MASACCIO, TOMMASO DI GIOVANNI
##Tommaso di Giovanni Masaccio 1401-1428
Tommaso di Giovanni Masaccio, one of the greatest masters of the Quattrocento, was born in San Giovanni, in the Val d' Arno. Masaccio came to Florence where the two great influences on his work were the sculptors, Brunelleschi and Donatello, from whom he would bring to his work a new consciousness of the human figure and sense of perspective. He was enrolled in the city guild of painters in 1424; and he died by in Rome in 1428. During his short life Masaccio made an almost phenomenal advance in painting.
Characteristics.-- The conventionalities that had hitherto clung to all pictured works were wholly dropped by Masaccio. His drawing of the human figure (tested by several nude figures in his pictures) is masterly. He puts animation and variety of expression into both figures and faces. In his work real life for the first time becomes the serious subject. While Giotto sought for the best means of telling the story selected as his subject, Masaccio sought, seemingly, a fitting incident which, as a theme, would enable him to portray most forcibly the characters he chose to represent. This study of individual character appears in the work of no earlier master, and was of great importance in the evolution of Italian painting. It marks the beginning of the tendency towards the predominance of the artistic treatment of a picture over its subject, and its inevitable end was to throw out the purely devotional aim which had before characterized painting. Masaccio made a great advance in both linear and aerial perspective; his figures were placed firmly on different planes in the same composition. His works include collaborations with Masolino on the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and St. Anne" (Uffizi), and on the cycle of frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel, S. Maria del Carmine in Florence.
$#MASOLINO DI CRISTOFORO, TOMMASO FINI
##Tommaso Masolino di Cristoforo da Panicale
Tommaso Masolino di Cristoforo, called "da Panicale" from the place of his birth, was a sculptor as well as a painter. His works give evidence of a careful observation of nature, are truthful in drawing and modelling, and show a knowledge of linear perspective. They possess a certain dramatic grouping of figures. His work in the Brancacci Chapel with Masaccio shows his initial style, the International Gothic, as well as the impact of Masaccio's stylistic treatment of light and space.
$#ORCAGNA, ANDREA DI CIONE
##Andrea Orcagna di Cione 1308-1368 ca.
Andrea Orcagna di Cione, who painted probably from 1343-1368, was also a sculptor and architect. He is distinguished as being one of the most noted of the immediate successors of Giotto. His figures show a greater sense of beauty and proportion. His color was rendered softer and more harmonious by his study of the Sienese masters, from whom also he learned to engraft a tenderness of expression upon the stern simplicity of the Giottesque School. His paintings are among the masterpieces for the fourteenth century. Orcagna, sculptor, architect and painter is distinguished as being one of the most notable successors of Giotto. His major extant work as a sculptor is the tabernacle for the Or San Michele, Florence. As an architect he supervised mosaic decoration on the facade of the Cathedral of Florence. The Altarpiece for the Strozzi Chapel in S. Maria Novella at Florence is his chief painted work, depicting "Christ in Glory with Saints."
$#PALMA IL VECCHIO, JACOPO D'ANTONIO NEGRETI
##Palma il Vecchio, Jacopo d'Antonio Negreti 1480-1528 ca.
Palma il Vecchio, called "Il Vecchio," was born at Serina, near Bergamou. He was Bergamesque by birth and name, but Venetian in his manner of painting. He was fond of natural backgrounds and represented in them eternal summer. His female figures are his best works, with soft, richly blended tones, and elegant bearing. His fondness for a type of opulent and sensual beauty marked his work, influenced by Titian but lacking a sense of mystery and atmosphere inherent in the latter's works. We have no account of his having studied with any great master or of his being employed by the state, but he was patronized by the families of noble Venetians of Cornaro and Friuli. At the time of his death, he had no family but nephews and a niece, and was a member of the brotherhood of Saint Spirito, in whose vaults, at San Gregorio, at Venice, he desired to be buried. His pictures are numerous, and yet he left forty-four unfinished when he died.
$#PERUGINO, PIETRO DI CRISTOFORO VANUCCI
##Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci Perugino 1446-1524
Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci, born in the little town of Citta della Pieva, was called "Perugino" because at maturity he settled in Perugia, established an academy, and there won his fame. Much of the excellence of his work is due to the study of Florentine masters. He was one of the first artists in central Italy to handle the new oil medium successfully. For several years the young Raphael worked in his studio, and the younger artist's influence can be seen in a more delicate, brilliant line than previously seen in Perugino's work. Perugino was the foremost painter in Umbria at the end of the Quattrocento, and in his work is successfully blended the great Florentine discoveries with the gentle spirit of his local tradition. His most important surviving work is the fresco in the Sistine Chapel, "Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter."
$#PISANO, ANDREA
##Andrea Pisano 1290-1349 ca.
Andrea Pisano's works as an architect and sculptor were few, and he is known only through two major works: the Florence Campanile, on which he assisted Giotto, and the Florence Baptistry doors. He gained a great reputation as a bronze-caster, and was entrusted with the execution of the gates to the Baptistery of Florence. They are now displaced by Ghiberti's gates, but when they were complete in 1339, it was said that all Florence was in ecstasy regarding them, and he received great honor for his work. He may be regarded as the reviver of bronze sculpture, which had constantly declined from the antique, and in which no work had been produced at all comparable with the gate of Andrea Pisano.
$#PISANO, GIOVANNI
##Giovanni Pisano 1240-1320 ca.
Giovanni Pisano was born in Pisa, and was the son of Nicola Pisa, a Romanesque sculptor and architect. Giovanni's own style, however, tended toward the Gothic, as can be seen in his facade of the Cathedral at Siena. Giovanni worked much under Nicola and assisted him with the Perugian fountain. As early as the making of the Siena pulpit, he was a master in his in his own right, and went in 1268 to Naples to fulfill a commission from the Franciscans there; he also designed the Episcopal Palace. After the death of Niccola, the Pisans were anxious to have Giovanni remain in his native city, where he executed important works. The Church of Santa Maria della Spina was the first example in Italy of the pointed architecture. In 1278 he was chosen to build the Pisan Campo Santo; it was the first and the most beautiful one in all Italy. Many of the sculptures here were also by his hand. The representation of Pisa was the first attempt at making large statues in Italy, since the days of Constantine. It had great intensity of expression in its principal figure, and displays the originality of Giovanni. He gained much reputation from this, and in 1286 went to Siena, where he was commissioned to build the facade of the cathedral. The people of Siena wished for him to make his home there; the magistrates made him a citizen and exempted him from taxes for life; but he remained only three years, and went next to Perugia. In this city he made a monument to Urban IV, which no longer exists. From this time, he devoted himself wholly to sculpture. At Arezzo he made the shrine of Saint Donato for the cathedral. It was a superb work of art. A new pulpit was also to be made for the Church of San Andrea, and there were those in Pistoia who had so admired Nicola Pisano that they wished to have his son to do it. In 1305 he was commissioned to make the monument of Pope Benedict XI, still remaining in San Domenico at Perugia and somewhat later, another monument of Saint Margaret in the church of that saint at Cortona. The general arrangement of the two was similar, and in both cases angels were holding back curtains and regarding the figures with sorrow. In 1312 he commenced rebuilding the Cathedral of Prato. He did not live to see it completed, but his designs were carried out with precision.
$#POLLAIUOLO, ANTONIO DI JACOPO DEL
##Antonio di Jacopo del Pollaiuolo 1433-1498
Antonio di Jacopo del Pollaiuolo was born in Florence. He was a sculptor, goldsmith, a worker in bronze and silver ornaments and also a painter. His pictures were affected by his other occupations, showing precise, incisive line. He excelled in the knowledge of perspective and anatomy, and it is said that Antonio was the first artist who dissected the human body in order to know how to represent it. His work summarized the trends and discoveries in Florentine art of his time. His major works represented contests of strength and muscular action, such as the sculpture of "Hercules and Antaeus," and the painted "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian" (London, N.G.). Antonio was celebrated as the best goldsmith of his time, and one of the major painters, and received many important commissions from church and state, including the great patron of art, Lorenzo de' Medici. He made bronze monuments for the Popes Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII. The first is now in the Chapel of the Sacrament in Saint Peter's.
$#ROBBIA, LUCA DI MARCO DELLA
##Luca di Simone di Marco Della Robbia 1400-1482
Luca Della Robbia was born in Florence in 1400. He entered the sculptor's guild in 1432, and founded a family workshop which would last into the sixteenth century. He was influenced by the work of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello, though Luca would later specialize in glazed terra cotta rather than marble and bronze, giving his name to the famed "Robbia ware." The only memorials of that time are the bas-reliefs in the side of the Campanile towards the Duomo, and two unfinished reliefs in the Uffizi. The first represent "Music, Philosophy, Geometry, Grammar, and Astronomy"; "Plato and Aristotle"; "Ptolemy and Euclid"; and a "Man Playing the Lute". The unfinished ones are the "Imprisonment" and "Crucifixion of Saint Peter". There are also the reliefs made for the balustrade of an organ in the Duomo. These were undertaken in 1445 and established him a with a high rank among Italian sculptors. They represented youths dancing, singing, and playing on musical instruments. He executed one of the finest of the many cinque-cento tombs for the Bishop Benozzo Federighi of Fiesole. A portion of the decorations of this tomb were enamelled tiles painted with fruits and flowers in their natural colors. In this enamel painting Luca excelled, and he made it so prominent that it has been known as Robbia ware. Luca made some changes by coloring his enamel for certain portions of the backgrounds, such as the plants, draperies, etc. Andrea, the nephew of Luca, worked with him and shared his property with another nephew, Simone, who was a shoemaker. After his death his secret of enamelling was carefully guarded by his family and created a fortune for them. They made a system of polychromatic architecture. Andrea and his son, Luca II, were employed eleven years in decorating the Ceppo Hospital, at Pistoia, with a frieze which represents the "Seven Acts of Mercy". The effect of this enamel painting is brilliant. Pope Leo X employed Luca II to pave the Loggie of the Vatican with colored tiles. Giovanni and Girolamo, brothers of Luca II, also worked in Robbia ware, and the latter went to France and was employed by Francis I in decorating his Chateau de Madrid, in the Bois de Boulogne.
$#SIGNORELLI, LUCA
##Luca Signorelli 1441-1523 ca.
Luca Signorelli was born in Cortona in 1441. This painter was very remarkable for his time. He was a pupil and collaborator of Piero della Francesca. He possessed a wonderful knowledge of anatomy and was a precursor of the manner of Michelangelo, who admired his works, and in a certain sense imitated him. His greatest work was in the Cathedral of Orvieto, where he represented the "End of the World", and the "History of Antichrist." The architectural parts were in the best classic style, the angels beautiful and graceful, the imps and the lost ones struggle with indescribable energy. Signorelli also painted in the Sistine Chapel a large fresco of the "History of Moses", and even there he holds an honorable place among the great painters whose works surround his. He had more influence on the painting of the High Renaissance than any of his Florentine contemporaries with the exception of Leonardo.
$#TURA, COSIMO
##Cosimo Tura 1430-1495
Court painter to the Duke of Ferrara, Tura founded the Renaissance School of Ferrara. Though little is known about his development, his style is unmistakable, with intricate, twisted lines and brilliant color. Major works include "Allegorical Figure" (London, N.G.), "Madonna in a Garden" (Washington, D.C., N.G.), "Pieta" (Venice, Correr Museum), and the "Poverella Altarpiece" (London, N.G.).
$#UCCELLO, PAOLO DI DONO
##Paolo di Dono Uccello 1397-1475
Paolo was called Uccello on account of his love for birds and was at one time chiefly famous for his mastery of the science of linear perspective. His devotion to this study was so great that Vasari says he would often neither eat nor sleep, and when remonstrated with by his wife would only reply, "Oh! this delightful perspective!" The knowledge gained and put into practice by him was a great help to contemporary artists. Modern criticism however, emphasizes his gift for fresco, mosaic and other decorative work, and it is believed today that his preoccupation with perspective is apocryphal. Major works include the series of frescoes of the "Creation" in Florence S. Maria Novella, the "Flood" and the "Battle of San Romano", (Louvre, Uffizi and London, N.G.), His works were marked by such stiffness and exact drawing of detail, and by figures so designed that they exhibited to the fullest extent his knowledge of mathematical foreshortening.
$#VERROCCHIO, ANDREA DEL
##Andrea Del Verrocchio 1432-1488
Verrocchio, was first a goldsmith, then a painter, but sculpture was his first loved art and he was the outstanding sculptor in Florence during the second half of the fifteenth century. He was also one of the most influential artists and teachers of that period. His pupils included such masters as Perugino, Botticelli and Leonardo. Among the sculptured masterpieces by Verrocchio are "Christ and St. Thomas" (Or San Michele), "David," the "Madonna and Child," and the "Woman with the Lovely Hands" (Florence National Museum). As a painter he has been overshadowed by the greatness of his pupils, especially Leonardo, but his work is distinguished by a keen insight into the psychological and intellectual motivation of his subjects, his knowledge of anatomy, and the magisterial command of space. Three paintings are assigned to him with varying degrees of certainty: the "Baptism of Christ" (Uffizi), which was completed by Leonardo, the "Altarpiece of the Madonna di Piazza" (Cathedral of Pistoia), and "Tobias and the Archangel," (two versions, Uffizi and London N.G.). The "Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Saints" (Budapest) is generally credited to him, but some critics believe it to be questionable.
$#LORENZETTI (OR LAURATI), PIETRO
##Pietro Lorenzetti 1306-1348 fl.
Brother of painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Pietro's style, like his brother, derived from the influence of Giotto. Though his influence was not as great as his brother's, Pietro had many assistants and followers. His major works include the polyptych "Madonna and Child with Saints" (S. Maria della Pieve, Arezzo), the frescoes in the Lower Church of S. Francesco, Assisi, including "The Madonna and Child between SS. Francis and John the Evangelist" and "Christ's Death and Resurrection", "Madonna and Child" (Uffizi), and perhaps his most important work, the "Nativity of the Virgin" triptych, in the Opera del Duomo, Siena.
$#ANGELICO, FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE
##Angelica, Fra Giovanni da Fiesole 1400-1456 ca
Fra Angelico, often called Il Beato (The Blessed) by the Italians, was for about thirty years a monk in the monastery of San Marco, Florence. His name owes its high rank (among the painters of his time) to the religious sentiment of his work. Today, however, his innovative style, influenced by Masaccio, and his welcoming of the new ideas of the Renaissance are recognized as most important and influential on the course of Italian painting.
Characteristics.--His most frequent subjects represent the lowliness of soul of God's servants and the devout beauty of angels. His figures are peculiarly quiet; many have passive, folded hands. The motion of his angels, dancing in Paradise, is a most gentle motion, which in no way disturbs the draperies. His execution is elaborate, sometimes almost miniature-like in delicacy. His coloring is most pure and simple and has been little affected by time. His latest works in Orvieto and Rome show the influence of the dawning Renaissance in a better drawing of the figure.
$#ANTONELLO DA MESSINA
##Antonello da Messina 1430-1479 ca.
Antonello was born in Messina. His family were painters for generations under the name of the Antonio. His grandfather and uncle are mentioned in the "Momorie de' Pittori Messinesi", and his father, Salvadore d'Antonio, was an architect and painter. The latter was his first instructor, and sent him as a young man to Rome to complete his studies. From Rome he went to Palermo, and then he went to Messina, and painted (as is believed) at this time the "Virgin and Child", in tempera, on panel, now in the Museo Peloritano of that city. He next went to Naples, probably about 1438, and became the pupil of Colantonio del Fiore. Here he was exposed to the work of Van Eyck, Patrus, Christus and other Netherlandish artists, which influenced his own work. In Venice he was employed, and painted many portraits. His work shows him to have acquired Flemish finish and execution. From this time his Italian tendencies seemed to strengthen as his later works show. In 1465 Antonello returned to Messina, where he received pupils, the best of whom was his son or nephew, Salvo d'Antonio. About this time he executed his most important works. In 1473 he went again to Venice and received important commissions. He was at one time in Milan, but when is not precisely known. He was also in Treviso in 1490, but returned to Venice where his genius had its most profound and lasting influence on the next generation of great Italian painters, including Mantegna and Carpaccio.
$#BARTOLOMMEO, FRA (BACCIO DELLA PORTA)
##Fra Bartolommeo 1472-1517
Fra Bartolommeo (Bacio della Porta), born near Florence, was a monk in the monastery of San Marco, the same to which Fra Angelico belonged. He had already won considerable fame as a painter under his real name, "Baccio", when the shock produced by the martyrdom of his friend Savonarola caused him to renounce painting and enter the monastery, which he did under the name of Fra Bartolommeo. After six years of utter seclusion, at the urgent entreaty of friends, he resumed his brush. About this time Raphael visited Florence, became strongly attached to Bartolommeo, learned from him his method of coloring, and, in return, gave him instruction in drawing. Both artists seem to have profited by their friendship. Bartolommeo's rank among Italian painters is high, and he is considered a key figure of the Renaissance in Florence in the early 16th century.
Characteristics.--His composition is simple, almost architectural in its masses; his favorite form is the pyramid, within whose outline he has grouped few figures. Types of figures and faces tend to be abstract and contain little individuality. His figures are clothed with heavy masses of drapery, which is quite elaborate. He is said to have been the first artist to use the lay-figure. In many pictures of the Madonna little boy angels are introduced, sitting at her feet and playing musical instruments, or otherwise occupied in ministry. Raphael borrowed this fancy. His color is finer than usual with Florentine painters, but injured by the use of black pigment in shadows. His management of chiaroscuro shows the influence of Leonardo da Vinci.
$#BELLINI, GENTILE
##Gentile Bellini 1429-1507
Gentile Bellini, elder son as well as pupil of Jacopo Bellini, went from Padua to Venice as a young man and gained great honor in that city. When Sultan Mahomet applied to Venice for a good painter in 1479, Gentile was sent to Constantinople, where he painted a portrait of the Sultan. Upon returning to Venice he painted a series of large pictures in the Council Hall of the Ducal Palace, representing scenes in Venetian history, all of which were destroyed by the great fire of 1577.
Characteristics.--Gentile Bellini depicts in his work the contemporary life of Venice as has no other artist or historian. He represented the architectural Venice of his day and against it pictured processions and masses of people clad in rich costumes and painted in a careful, exact manner with full, warm, harmonious color.
$#BELLINI, GIOVANNI
##Giovanni Bellini 1430-1516 ca.
The natural son of Jacopo Bellini, Giovanni came to Venice from Padua as a boy. He spent the remainder of his long life there. He was taught by his father and became a greater painter than either his father (Jacopo) or his brother (Gentile). He was a continually growing artist, and painted his best pictures when aged. Mantegna (Paduan School) was his brother-in-law and friend, and some of his earlier pictures can hardly be distinguished from those of that master, while his later ones are filled with the perfection of beauty that marks the High Renaissance. He attained high rank as a portrait painter. He had many pupils, among them Giorgione and Titian. His work was influenced by Piero della Franesca, and it was during his lifetime that Antonello da Messina introduced the use of oil painting to Italy. His best and all his latest works are painted in oils.
Characteristics.--Subjects are mostly religious, and often have landscape backgrounds, for which he evinced great love. His figures possess much dignity and serenity; his best Madonnas are really majestic as they lift the "column of their throats" and hold forth the Divine Child to the worship of the world. His earlier works show a certain hardness: the drapery is angular; the anatomical joinings evident in hands and feet. In his later works all these defects disappear. His color is true Venetian, flooded with golden light. He paid great attention to the detail of costumes and also of landscape, picturing with fidelity the undulating forms of distant hills and all the minutiae of weeds and stones in the foreground.
$#BOTTICELLI, ALESSANDRO (SANDRO)
##Alessandro Botticelli 1444-1510 ca.
Alessandro Botticelli called Botticelli from the name of a goldsmith to whose service he was bound when a boy, was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, and is one of the most important among the fifteenth-century painters. Botticelli was closely associated with the Medici and his fortune paralleled theirs. The death of Lorenzo ended the world in which Botticelli had found honors and fame. Before him the old masters had drawn the inspiration for their works from the Bible; the great mass of pictures had been painted in the service of the church. Botticelli's nature was imaginative: he delighted in myths, fables, and poetry, and freely introduced into his painting all kinds of fanciful creations. Others were beginning to widen the field of art a little, but Botticelli was the first to step boldly forth and make his painting a means for the delight of the secular as well as the religious world. He was a leader in the great movement in the history of art in Florence that led to the protest by Savonarola against the "corrupting influence" as he called it and "of profane pictures". He became an ardent disciple of this great prophet. When Savonarola demanded that bonfires should be made of these "profane" works of art, Botticelli contributed many of his pictures to the burning pile.
Characteristics.--While Masaccio had taken a long step in advance of former artists by making humanity rather than events the chief center of interest in his works, Botticelli pictured not merely humanity, but also human feelings. We see this particularly in his sad-faced Madonnas, whose expressions seem born of a prophetic sorrow, sometimes further denoted by the introduction of the crown of thorns into the picture; it is also seen in the eager, sympathetic countenances of those who surround her. He created a type of face and figure that is most easily recognizable. His figures are unusually tall and graceful, often shown through almost transparent garments; the limbs are slender, the hands long and nervous. His faces are long and thin, with prominent, round chins and very full lips. His style of painting shows early training in the goldsmith's shop; he loved to elaborate with gold-painted embroideries and jewelry, and even gilded the lights upon the heavy locks of hair. His representation of figures in motion is far beyond anything that preceded him and has never been excelled.
$#BRUNELLESCHI, FILIPPO
##Filippo Brunelleschi 1377-1446
Filippo Brunelleschi, born in Florence, was a great architect who is known as the father of the Renaissance. His father, Filippo Lapi, intended him to be a lawyer or physician, but his love for mechanical pursuits was so great that he was placed with a goldsmith. He gradually came to be an architect and was the first Florentine who applied geometrical rules of the ancient Greeks to that branch of art. Masaccio and Benedetto da Majano profited by his example in the application of the rules of perspective to their pictures and mosaics. It is said that Brunelleschi spent much time in Rome studying the remains of ancient architecture and making drawings from them. In 1420 the Signoria of Florence called together the architects of all countries, to consider the completion of the dome of the Cathedral. Brunelleschi presented himself, armed with well-digested plans, and, although sneered at and opposed, the work was at length committed to him. He completed it, and, in spite of great trials and hindrances of every possible kind, he produced one of the greatest and boldest masterpieces of the world in any age. The church of San Lorenzo (1425) is a specimen of his designs; the Capella Pazzi, in the courts of Santa Croce, is a proof of his ability to design the graceful and elegant. The Badia of Fiesole, and the Hospital of the Innocenti are also fine examples of his work. In secular architecture he excelled, as may be seen in the Palazzo Pitti.. Brunelleschi was also a sculptor and a worker in bronze.
#CANALETTO,
##Giovanni Antonio Canaletto 1697-1768
Canaletto (Antonio Canale) was born in Venice and became a pupil of his father, Bernardo Canale, who was a scene painter for the theater. He went to Rome at an early age, where he carefully studied the ruins of the ancient city. Returning to Venice, he astonished his countrymen by his magnificent views of the palaces and edifices of their city, and by his representations of festivals and carnival scenes, in some of which there are at least 200 figures. He went twice to England, where he was much patronized. His interior views were excellent. However, it is in his Venetian pictures that the gondolas, with their gold and festive decorations, give the brightness to the scene as his figures were often done in neutral tints. He acquired a fortune. His works were very numerous. Some of his followers imitated him so closely that their works are sometimes mistaken for his own, and, indeed, there are large numbers of pictures similar to those of Canaletto.
$#ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO
##Andrea Del Castagno 1423-1457
Andrea del Castagno painted pictures full of force and energy, which give evidence of considerable study of the human figure. He excelled in showing movement and expression, and his work is characterized by vigorous drawing. They mark a step in the gradual evolution of Florentine art, since each figure seems distinct with individual character. Major works include "The Crucifixion with Saints" and "The Last Supper", both at the Church St. Appollonia, and the completion of "Scenes from the Life of the Virgin" left unfinished by Domenico Veneziano whom Andrea was falsely believed until the last century to have murdered.
$#CAVALLINI, PIETRO
##Pietro Cavallini 1250-1330 ca.
Cavallini was a leading painter at the end of the 13th century and beginning of the 14th century and was comparable in importance to Cimabue and Duccio. It is certain that in 1308 he was employed by Robert of Naples, but his works of that time do not exist, or are unknown. He was a pupil or follower of Giotto, and had probably been instructed by the Cosneati. The oldest of his surviving works in Rome is the mosaic in the apse of St. Maria in Trastevere depicting six scenes from "The Life of the Virgin". At San Grisogono, at Rome, there is a mosaic, undoubtedly his, which represents the Virgin enthroned, with the Child giving the benediction; Saints James and Chrysogonus are also in the same work. Perhaps his most important work is "The Last Judgment" in the Church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere. His expressive and real faces imbue his work with great power and poetry.
$#PIERO DI COSIMO
##Piero di Cosimo 1462-1521
Piero di Cosimo was a pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, and accepted his Master's name. Although little is known about his life, about 50 paintings are attributed to him, including the altarpieces and devotional paintings. The influence of Filippino Lippi is clear in his early work, and as later works show the signs of Leonardo in the use of color, as well as Raphael's use of space and composition. Though his work reflects diverse influence, Piero was an artist of brilliant imagination and originality, and in his work he reworked impressions and made them his own. His unique character is especially clean and unravelled in his secular works. He was a painter of great originality and was the first real landscapist among the Florentines, and placed some of his mythical scenes in the midst of truly delightful landscapes. He painted the background in Cosimo Roselli's fresco, "Sermon on the Mount", in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. He was also a portrait painter of considerable note.
$#CRIVELLI, CARLO
##Carlo Crivelli 1430-1495 ca.
Carlo Crivelli was born in Venice. His earliest known work is dated 1468, and his latest, 1495. He was one of the best of the tempera painters of Venice. His pictures were well executed. He was fond of painting garlands of flowers or fruit on gold grounds as ornaments to his pictures;there was a certain rigidity in his representation of these items. When his works are chronologically studied, one can see obvious changes in his manner. The honor of knighthood was conferred on Crivelli in 1490 by Prince Ferdinand of Capua. A "Pieta" of 1493 was his best and probably last work. He had much talent. His works were very numerous, and are in many collections and in the churches of Massa and other places.
$#LEONARDO DA VINCI
##Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519
Leonardo da Vinci was born in Vinci, in the Val d'Arno, below Florence, and is considered to be one of the greatest masters in the history of painting. He was a pupil of Andrea del Verrocchio. Leonardo has been well called a "universal genius." He was painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. He had a thorough knowledge of anatomy, mathematics, astronomy, and botany, and also was a poet and musician. It was his greatest delight to study the growth of plant life, the hidden laws that govern the mineral world, the movement of planets in the heavens, -- and this love for the deep things of nature he carried into his study of art. It is said that he always wore a sketchbook attached to his girdle, and would wander through the streets of Florence looking for some especially picturesque figure or some face possessing unusual subtlety of expression. He would excite the mirth of peasants so that he could study the line of their laughing faces. It is also said that he even followed criminals to their painful death so that he might gain some new experience that would aid his art. In this way he laid the foundation for the most eminent characteristics of his work. Yet, from the study of Leonardo's life, we must judge that he enjoyed more this study in and for itself than for its results, for he was never satisfied with his experiences when included them into one of his pictures. He was a most devoted and happy student and a most dissatisfied painter. Over and over again would he paint and then destroy his work. It is to this characteristic that the small number of his existing pictures is due. When Leonardo was about thirty, he went to Milan, where he worked, both in sculpture and painting, in the service of the reigning duke. He became master of the Milanese or Lombard school of painting. After many years of work he returned to Florence, and there, at one time, entered into a competition with Michelangelo in the decoration of the two end walls of the great Hall of the Council Palazzo Vechio. Leonardo chose for his subject "The Defeat of the Milanese by the Florentines at Anghiari"; Michelangelo chose "Pisan Soldiers Called Suddenly to Arms While Bathing in the Arno." The cartoons produced by the two masters mark an important epoch in Italian art. In them we find for the first time the human figure treated with all the truth and splendid fulness of expression of the High Renaissance. Neither picture was completed. A part of Leonardo's cartoon, called "The Battle of the Standard", is now known by an engraving after a copy by Rubens.
Characteristics.--In the latter half of the fifteenth century all the great principles which underlie the art of representation had been mastered. Each great preceding painter had made some important contribution to the general knowledge, until the artist found himself fully equipped for his work. Leonardo's greatest gift to painting was a perfected chiaroscuro. His treatment of this was a revelation to his contemporaries and followers, with his melting and mysterious shadows, and the bewitching way he illuminates his work with light. He used to say to his pupils, "Be as careful for the light in your picture as you would be of a rare jewel". His work shows how well he followed his own precept. His composition, seen at its best in the "Last Supper" was unsurpassed. His drawing is done extremely carefully, and his lines express wonderfully the subtlety of form. His color is clear and silvery, but has suffered very much from his habit of experimenting with technique. He used oils and painted and repainted, touched and retouched infinitely. His backgrounds show a mannerism that seems to have followed him from the studio of his master, Verrocchio: rocks and dark trees and running water, with diffused twilight mark nearly every one of his works. His ideal woman's face has dark eyes and hair, a long, slender nose, and a somewhat pointed chin, and is marked by a peculiar, languid, subtle smile, as is shown in his masterpiece, the "Mona Lisa".
$#DADDI, BERNARDO (DA FIRENZE)
##Bernardo Daddi 1280-1348 ca.
Bernardo Daddi was born at Arezzo, and became one of the leading Florentine painters. Some of his works remain in Florence, and his name is among those who approved the original statutes for the founding of the Compagni of Florence. The object of this society was the meeting together of artists to afford each other assistance, and to thank God for the prospered state of art at that time. It seems to have been largely a religious institution, and assembled in a chapel of Saint Maria Nuova. His work shows the influence of Giotto, and a certain affinity for the Sienese style of painting though no link is known for certain. Among the many works attributed to Bernardo are the frescoes of the "Martyrdom of SS. Lawrence and Stephen" in Santa Croce, Florence, and the polyptych with "The Crucifixion" and eight saints; dated the year of his death, 1348.
$#DOMENICO VENEZIANO
##Domenico Veneziano 1405-1461 ca.
Domenico Veneziano was possibly born in Venice, but little is known of his early years. During four centuries Castagno, on Vasari's authority, bore the terrible accusation of having been the murderer of Veneziano through envy of the praises bestowed on the latter because of the beautiful results of his painting in the oil medium, which at this time, was being gradually introduced into Italy. It has, however, been conclusively proved that Veneziano did not die until several years after his alleged murderer. With regard to the use of oils, it is unlikely that Domenico was solely responsible for their introduction. His major contribution is in his lyrical use of color, a style which would influence and be formative for his greatest follower, Piero della Francesca. Though one of the outstanding personalities of his time, Domenico was not in the mainstream of painters in Florence, dominated at the time by Filippo Lippi and Andrea del Castagno. Very few pictures by Veneziano are now in existence. Of his few surviving works, the "Tabernacle of the Carnesecchi" in the London National Gallery, two versions of the "Virgin and Child," and the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child" painted for the church of S. Lucia de Magnoli (now in the Uffizi), are the most important.
$#DONATELLO, DONATO DI BETTO BARDI
##Donatello di Betto Bardi 1386-1466 ca.
Donatello (Donato di Betto Bardi) began his career assisting Ghiberti with the bronze doors for the Florentine Baptistry.. This sculptor was a close imitator of nature. He seemed careless of mere beauty, and his works are striking for their marked difference from those of his predecessors, especially in that he defined the forms beneath his draperies, made it possible to believe that the folds concealed the human figure. His work contained a powerful sense of movement, as in his marble statue of "St. George," and he became famous for the technique of "relievo schiaceiato" (flat relief) which he developed. Donatello was a giant among sculptors in Florence during the Quattrocento, and his influence on the early Renaissance in Italy is undisputed. Individualistic and dedicated, he invested his work with an overpowering sense of life and driving spirit. Donatello was buried in the Church of San Lorenzo with great pomp. His resting-place was near that of Cosimo de' Medici, so that, as he said, "his body might be near him when dead, as his spirit had ever been near him when in life."
$#GENTILE DA FABRIANO
##Gentile da Fabriano 1370-1427
Gentile da Fabriano's work represents one of the highest expressions of the International Gothic style. Gentile combined a passionate realism with luxuriously ornamented details, embroidered garments, tapestries, rich costumes and gold background in his work, with the inventiveness of a tireless experimenter. His most important works include the "Adoration of the Magi," now in the Uffizi, the polyptych for the church of Valle Romita (now in the Brera), including "Scenes of the Coronation of the Virgin with Four Saints," and the "Quaratesi Polyptych. A number of his works were lost or destroyed. Gentile represented a sophisticated, courtly tradition and though Florentine art would not be significantly influenced by him, he was greatly respected there as an artist.
$#FOPPA, VINCENZO
##Vincenzo Foppa 1427-1515 ca.
Vincenzo Foppa was born in Brescia and afterward lived in Milan, where he was court painter to the Duke. It is probable that he studied in the school of Squarcione. His works show the same study of the antique, the same taste for classic architecture and gilt studio ornament that are found in the early Paduan School. They were also marked good outline drawing and by an unusual energy of expression, sometimes carried almost to the grotesque. His drawings have often been attributed to Mantegna (Paduan School), whose work influenced his own, particularly in perspective and modeling. His major works include a "Crucifixion" (Bergamo Gallery), fresco cycles in S. Eustorgio, Milan, and S. Maria del Carmine, Brescia, and the "Martyrdom of S. Sebastian," Castello Sforzesco, Milan.
$#PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA
##Piero della Francesca 1416-1492 ca.
Piero della Francesca was born in Borgo San Sepolcro at the beginning of the Quattrocento, and was one of the greatest Italian painters of that century. He is distinguished for having advanced the study of perspective. He began his career assisting Domenico Veneziano with the frescoes in the Church of S. Egidio in Florence (now almost completely lost, and his early work shows strongly an affinity with Masaccio. His masterpiece is the fresco in the Choir of the church of S. Francesco in Arezzo depicting the "Legend of the True Cross," in which he blended the human presence into precise perspective backgrounds, an accomplishment of supreme importance for painting in Italy. He is famous as a writer on higher mathematics and the laws of perspective as well as painter. He was one of the artists invited to Rome by Pope Nicholas V., whose works in the Vatican were destroyed in order to make room for the frescoes of Raphael.
In addition to the frescoes in S. Francesco, one of the monuments of the Italian Renaissance, Piero's major works include the altarpiece "Our Lady of Mercy with Saints" with the "Annunciation" and the Crucifixion" (Borgo, Pin.), "Flagellation of Christ (Urbino, G.N.), the great "Diptych of the Duke of Urbino" (Uffizi). Piero della Francesca's new vision of volume in space, perspective and light would influence many contemporary artists as well as those to follow, including Perugino, Raphael, Antonello da Messina and Giovanni Bellini.
$#GADDI, TADDEO DI GADDO
##Taddeo Gaddi 1334-1366 ca
Taddeo Gaddi was the most important and constant of Giotto's pupils, with whom he was associated for over twenty years. He imitated Giotto very closely, though he never equalled him. Indeed, the great number of Giotto's pupils were always behind their master in the best qualities of his art. Gaddi's early work was his best, showing how much owed to the direct influence of Giotto. He differed from his master in the length and attention that he often gave to the limbs of his figures, and his tendency to add greater variety to background style and content. His major works include scenes from the "Life of Christ" in the Florentine Academy, and his remarkable "Pieta" (Yale University, Art Museum). Many frescoes formerly attributed to this artist are now lost.
$#GADDI, GADDO DI ZANOBI
##Gaddo di Zanobi Gaddi 1239-1312
Gaddi was the father of Taddeo, and the first of a prominent family of Florentine painters. He was a friend of Cimabue, whom he survived by twelve years. He was also a friend of Andrea Tafi and a worker in mosaics. Vasari speaks of many of his works, both paintings and mosaics, but the only remaining ones that can be attributed to him are some mosaics in the portico of Saint Maria Maggiore, in Rome, which were executed in 1308, and possibly others in the cathedrals of Florence and Pisa, and in the Baptistery at Florence.
$#GHIBERTI, LORENZO DI BARTOLO
##Lorenzo di Bartolo Ghiberti 1378-1455
Lorenzo di Bartolo Ghiberti was born in Florence. A goldsmith and sculptor, he also painted some pictures at Rimini, where he fled from the plague in 1398. He is best known by his bronze gates to the Baptistery of Florence, which Michelangelo thought "worthy to be the gate of Paradise," which is known by that name and have never been surpassed in some respects. There was much controversy as to who should obtain the honor of making these gates, and after Ghiberti received it, he spent twenty years on the first, and as much more time on the last. It is easy to see in them the marks of the goldsmith's minute and finished manner, but Ghiberti introduced a new feature in bas-relief when he attempted to represent distance in background. In beautiful ornamentation, and perfect form and finish of all minor parts, he has never been surpassed. Ghiberti also made three statues for the Church of Orsanmichele; two bas-reliefs for the Cathedral of Siena, and the Sarcophagus of Saint Zenobius, in Santa Maria del Fiore, of Florence. He was a leading figure in Florence for fifty years, establishing a formative workshop.
$#GHIRLANDAIO, DOMENICO BIGORDI IL
##Domenico Bigordi Ghirlandaio 1449-1494
Domenico Ghirlandaio. (Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi) was born in Florence. It is said that his father was a goldsmith, who made such exquisite garlands for the hair that he was called Ghirlandaio (the garland-twiner), which name descended to his children. There are certain characteristics of Domenico's pictures which might result from a knowledge of the goldsmith's art, such as precision in drawing, the modelling of figures, and the arrangement of drapery. Ghirlandaio was said to be a pupil of Alessio Baldovinetti, and became a mosaicist and the most celebrated fresco painter of his generation. They plainly show the advance from his earlier to his best manner: he introduced in his pictures the portraits of celebrated and important personages of his time, and was original in many ways. His life is a landmark in the history of Florentine art. His special greatness is in composition. He preferred large spaces, and worked in the old system of tempera. His portrait figures were not the actors in the scene represented, but he placed them, generally, in detached groups. This gave a solemn effect, and are comparable in their relation to the picture, to the chorus in a Greek tragedy. In the technicalities of these fresco-painting he excelled, and his works were highly finished. Ghirlandaio was the master of Michelangelo. Very little is of the mosaics which he executed, although he called mosaic work "painting for eternity." Major works include "St. Jerome" and the "Last Supper" in the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, the frescoes in the Sala dei Gigli in the Palazzo Vecchio, and the "Adoration of the Magi" now in the Uffizi.
$#GIOTTO DI BONDONE
##Giotto di Bondone 1276-1336
Giotto di Bondone was born in Vespignano. According to the legend, when tending his flock, Giotto was accustomed to draw on the large, flat stones, and while thus employed, Cimabue came upon him, was filled with admiration of his work, and obtained the consent of his father to his taking him to be his pupil. Though this is probably merely a story, it is entirely possible that Giotto did study with Cimabue in Florence. Giotto became a painter, sculptor, and architect. Giotto drew his inspiration from nature, and he is generally regarded as the father of modern painting. His principal works were his fresco paintings, the masterpiece of which is the series of paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Giotto's ideas of space and perspective in architectural backgrounds, his placement of figures and use of gesture, all served to lead art in Italy from the Byzantine world into the western Gothic period. At the time of his death, Giotto had been architect and master of Santa Maria del Fiore two years. He was buried there, and afterwards a monument was erected to him upon which his portrait was carved by Benedetto da Maiano.
$#BENOZZO GOZZOLI
##Benozzo Gozzoli 1420-1498
Benozzo Gozzoli (Benozzi di Lese Sandro) was a pupil of Fra Angelico, whom he assisted in his work in the Cathedral at Orvieto, and whose style of painting he at first quite faithfully followed. His early pictures show much of the tender grace and ideal beauty of Angelico. Later he was influenced by the works of Masaccio, and turning wholly from the ideality of his former master, seems to have revelled in the study of nature and real life. His landscape backgrounds are filled with villas, trees, vines, fruit, and flowers, and are animated with herds of cattle, deer, hares, dogs and birds. He loved to tell stories by his pictures, and introduced many portraits, some of which are admirably treated; indeed, so close to nature is much of his painting of portrait heads, that by some writers he has been called the "Florentine Holbein."
$#LIPPI, FILIPPINO
##Filippino Lippi 1457-1504 ca.
Filippino Lippi, son of Fra Filippo Lippi and pupil of Botticelli, had the honor of having completed the series of frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, Florence, begun by Masolino and carried on by Masaccio. He ranks with Botticelli and Ghirlandaio in importance.
Characteristics.--His works are noted for high sentiment, grace, and beauty, rather than for strength of conception or rendering. His early work in the Brancacci chapel resembles Masaccio's, while it is sometimes difficult to distinguish some of his later painting from that of Botticelli. His work lacked the nervous energy seen in much of Botticelli's work. His faces are particularly sweet in expression. He liked to embellish his figures, in easel pictures especially, with varied draperies, headdresses, etc. Major works include the "Adoration of the Magi," and "Scenes from the Life of Esther" (London), the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints and a Donor," and the fresco cycle, "Scenes from the Lives of St. Philip and St. John the Evangelist" (Church of S. Maria Novella, Florence).
$#LIPPI, FRA FILIPPO
##Fra Filippo Lippi 1406-1469
Lippi Fra Filippo, the painter to whose name so much of romance and scandal clings, was influenced by both Fra Angelico and Masaccio, and blended the ideal of one with the real of the other. A lay brother at the Carmelite Abbey in Florence, he ran away with a nun (whose marriage the Pope legalized subsequently), and had one son, Filippino, who also became a painter. He established his reputation with three works: the "Barbadori Altarpiece" (Louvre); the "Coronation of the Virgin" (Uffizi); and the "Annunciation" (S. Lorenzo which best illustrate his early Florentine style. One of the most original and personal of his works is the lyrical "Madonna and Child" (Uffizi).
Characteristics: His works are marked by a stately composition and fine, golden color. The faces he painted are short and broad, with very wide jaws, and are marked by a grave but decidedly youthful expression. His Madonnas usually wear a delicate, filmy headdress, which was an adornment of the Florentine ladies of his time. His angels are lusty, merry-faced boys.
$#LORENZO MONACO, (PIERO DI GIOVANNI)
##Lorenzo Monaco 1370-1425 ca.
Lorenzo Monaco (Piero di Giovanni), born in Sienna, was a monk and belonged to the monastery called degli Angioli, in Florence. His early works follow Giotto in style, but later he united with the realism of the school of Giotto much of the idealism and religious fervor of expression for which Fra Angelico (his contemporary) is noted, and his works reflect the style of the International Gothic. . His execution is very tender and careful; his color pure and harmonious. His works include the diptych "Christ on the Mount of Olives" (Louvre), the "Coronation of the Virgin" Altarpiece and the "Adoration of the Magi" (both in the Uffizi), and the fresco cycle of the "Life of the Virgin" and the "Annunciation Altarpiece" of S. Trinita, Florence.
$#MANTEGNA, ANDREA
##Andrea Mantegna 1431-1506
Andrea Mantegna was adopted by Squarcione and registered as his foster-child in 1441. At the age of seventeen, he painted a much-admired Madonna for the Church of Santa Sophia. It is evident from the early efforts of Mantegna that he studied the works of other masters from Squarcione, his instructor. The earliest picture of his which is so preserved as to show his manner, is an altar-piece in the Brera, representing Saint Luke and other saints. This was executed in 1454, and is excellent in modeling, light and shade; it has a northern realism, but is far superior to most Squarcionesques, and equal in color to any tempera painting of Venice of the same time. After 1448 he worked on the chapel of Saints Jacopo and Christoforo in the Church of Eremitani at Padua. The whole left side, with the "Life of Saint Jacobo, " and the "Martyrdom of Saint Cristoforo", is his work. For his age and the state of Paduan art they are wonderful, although the some critics of Squarcione said that his figures were statuesque and lifeless. Mantegna had become disaffected towards his foster-father, had married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, and fully sympathized with the faction opposed to Squarcione. He had no doubt been much affected by the influence of Donatello at Padua; he had studied the antique as much as possible and imitated it in his architecture and figures. But the "Martyrdom of Saint Cristoforo" shows that he had discovered his mistake, and strangely displays his attempt to remedy his greatest fault. These works made him famous, and the Marquis of Mantua used every inducement to persuade him to leave Padua. But he was occupied with some pictures for San Zeno at Verona. The Marquis persistently followed Mantegna, and at length about 1460 he entered his service, in which he continued until his death. The Marquis required all kinds of work of him, from the most sacred subjects to turkeys. In the old castle two rooms remain decorated by Mantegna. An inscription in one gives the date of 1474. The subjects are full of grace and life. The achievements of Hercules, busts of Roman emperors, and a strutting peacock, with beautiful heads of women and children regarding it, are a part of them; and in the center he represented a great aperture through which, apparently, the blue sky is seen. Sometime in 1483, after a change in government and the death of his patron earlier, he found new a patron in the Duchess of Este. At length in 1488 he was sent to Rome to paint a chapel in the Vatican for Innocent VIII, whose request the Marquis could not refuse. Here he labored unceasingly for two years. He then resumed the "Triumphs of Caesar", in which he had been interrupted, and in 1491 the Marquis made him new presents of land as a reward for these excellent works. From this time his works all show the presence of his assistants. It was not, however, until 1495 that he produced his famous "Madonna della Vittoria",. He painted until his death, but he suffered much sorrow and loss in his later years. Mantegna was doubtless the greatest painter of Northern Italy in his day, and his influence was felt in all Italy. His works are full of meaning; his inventive powers were large; his foreshortening, perspective, chiaroscuro, and color were excellent. He also painted what may be called reliefs, or pictures in chiaroscuro, and was besides a good engraver. He was early in the practice of this art, and his knowledge of design greatly assisted him to excel.
$#SIMONE DI MARTINO
##Simone Martini 1283-1344 ca.
Probably a student of Duccio, Simone Martini was born in Siena and his works would have a considerable effect on the development of the Siena School into the fifteenth century. He achieved a stylistic balance between the Gothic and what would become the International Gothic, with the optical depth and original ideas of space and elegant detail. His works include the "Holy Martyr" (Ottawa, N.G.), the "Polyptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints and Prophets" (Pisa), and his masterpiece, the cycle of frescoes in the Lower Church of Assisi, "Scenes from the Life of St. Martin."
$#MASACCIO, TOMMASO DI GIOVANNI
##Tommaso di Giovanni Masaccio 1401-1428
Tommaso di Giovanni Masaccio, one of the greatest masters of the Quattrocento, was born in San Giovanni, in the Val d' Arno. Masaccio came to Florence where the two great influences on his work were the sculptors, Brunelleschi and Donatello, from whom he would bring to his work a new consciousness of the human figure and sense of perspective. He was enrolled in the city guild of painters in 1424; and he died by in Rome in 1428. During his short life Masaccio made an almost phenomenal advance in painting.
Characteristics.-- The conventionalities that had hitherto clung to all pictured works were wholly dropped by Masaccio. His drawing of the human figure (tested by several nude figures in his pictures) is masterly. He puts animation and variety of expression into both figures and faces. In his work real life for the first time becomes the serious subject. While Giotto sought for the best means of telling the story selected as his subject, Masaccio sought, seemingly, a fitting incident which, as a theme, would enable him to portray most forcibly the characters he chose to represent. This study of individual character appears in the work of no earlier master, and was of great importance in the evolution of Italian painting. It marks the beginning of the tendency towards the predominance of the artistic treatment of a picture over its subject, and its inevitable end was to throw out the purely devotional aim which had before characterized painting. Masaccio made a great advance in both linear and aerial perspective; his figures were placed firmly on different planes in the same composition. His works include collaborations with Masolino on the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and St. Anne" (Uffizi), and on the cycle of frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel, S. Maria del Carmine in Florence.
$#MASOLINO DI CRISTOFORO, TOMMASO FINI
##Tommaso Masolino di Cristoforo da Panicale
Tommaso Masolino di Cristoforo, called "da Panicale" from the place of his birth, was a sculptor as well as a painter. His works give evidence of a careful observation of nature, are truthful in drawing and modelling, and show a knowledge of linear perspective. They possess a certain dramatic grouping of figures. His work in the Brancacci Chapel with Masaccio shows his initial style, the International Gothic, as well as the impact of Masaccio's stylistic treatment of light and space.
$#ORCAGNA, ANDREA DI CIONE
##Andrea Orcagna di Cione 1308-1368 ca.
Andrea Orcagna di Cione, who painted probably from 1343-1368, was also a sculptor and architect. He is distinguished as being one of the most noted of the immediate successors of Giotto. His figures show a greater sense of beauty and proportion. His color was rendered softer and more harmonious by his study of the Sienese masters, from whom also he learned to engraft a tenderness of expression upon the stern simplicity of the Giottesque School. His paintings are among the masterpieces for the fourteenth century. Orcagna, sculptor, architect and painter is distinguished as being one of the most notable successors of Giotto. His major extant work as a sculptor is the tabernacle for the Or San Michele, Florence. As an architect he supervised mosaic decoration on the facade of the Cathedral of Florence. The Altarpiece for the Strozzi Chapel in S. Maria Novella at Florence is his chief painted work, depicting "Christ in Glory with Saints."
$#PALMA IL VECCHIO, JACOPO D'ANTONIO NEGRETI
##Palma il Vecchio, Jacopo d'Antonio Negreti 1480-1528 ca.
Palma il Vecchio, called "Il Vecchio," was born at Serina, near Bergamou. He was Bergamesque by birth and name, but Venetian in his manner of painting. He was fond of natural backgrounds and represented in them eternal summer. His female figures are his best works, with soft, richly blended tones, and elegant bearing. His fondness for a type of opulent and sensual beauty marked his work, influenced by Titian but lacking a sense of mystery and atmosphere inherent in the latter's works. We have no account of his having studied with any great master or of his being employed by the state, but he was patronized by the families of noble Venetians of Cornaro and Friuli. At the time of his death, he had no family but nephews and a niece, and was a member of the brotherhood of Saint Spirito, in whose vaults, at San Gregorio, at Venice, he desired to be buried. His pictures are numerous, and yet he left forty-four unfinished when he died.
$#PERUGINO, PIETRO DI CRISTOFORO VANUCCI
##Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci Perugino 1446-1524
Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci, born in the little town of Citta della Pieva, was called "Perugino" because at maturity he settled in Perugia, established an academy, and there won his fame. Much of the excellence of his work is due to the study of Florentine masters. He was one of the first artists in central Italy to handle the new oil medium successfully. For several years the young Raphael worked in his studio, and the younger artist's influence can be seen in a more delicate, brilliant line than previously seen in Perugino's work. Perugino was the foremost painter in Umbria at the end of the Quattrocento, and in his work is successfully blended the great Florentine discoveries with the gentle spirit of his local tradition. His most important surviving work is the fresco in the Sistine Chapel, "Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter."
$#PISANO, ANDREA
##Andrea Pisano 1290-1349 ca.
Andrea Pisano's works as an architect and sculptor were few, and he is known only through two major works: the Florence Campanile, on which he assisted Giotto, and the Florence Baptistry doors. He gained a great reputation as a bronze-caster, and was entrusted with the execution of the gates to the Baptistery of Florence. They are now displaced by Ghiberti's gates, but when they were complete in 1339, it was said that all Florence was in ecstasy regarding them, and he received great honor for his work. He may be regarded as the reviver of bronze sculpture, which had constantly declined from the antique, and in which no work had been produced at all comparable with the gate of Andrea Pisano.
$#PISANO, GIOVANNI
##Giovanni Pisano 1240-1320 ca.
Giovanni Pisano was born in Pisa, and was the son of Nicola Pisa, a Romanesque sculptor and architect. Giovanni's own style, however, tended toward the Gothic, as can be seen in his facade of the Cathedral at Siena. Giovanni worked much under Nicola and assisted him with the Perugian fountain. As early as the making of the Siena pulpit, he was a master in his in his own right, and went in 1268 to Naples to fulfill a commission from the Franciscans there; he also designed the Episcopal Palace. After the death of Niccola, the Pisans were anxious to have Giovanni remain in his native city, where he executed important works. The Church of Santa Maria della Spina was the first example in Italy of the pointed architecture. In 1278 he was chosen to build the Pisan Campo Santo; it was the first and the most beautiful one in all Italy. Many of the sculptures here were also by his hand. The representation of Pisa was the first attempt at making large statues in Italy, since the days of Constantine. It had great intensity of expression in its principal figure, and displays the originality of Giovanni. He gained much reputation from this, and in 1286 went to Siena, where he was commissioned to build the facade of the cathedral. The people of Siena wished for him to make his home there; the magistrates made him a citizen and exempted him from taxes for life; but he remained only three years, and went next to Perugia. In this city he made a monument to Urban IV, which no longer exists. From this time, he devoted himself wholly to sculpture. At Arezzo he made the shrine of Saint Donato for the cathedral. It was a superb work of art. A new pulpit was also to be made for the Church of San Andrea, and there were those in Pistoia who had so admired Nicola Pisano that they wished to have his son to do it. In 1305 he was commissioned to make the monument of Pope Benedict XI, still remaining in San Domenico at Perugia and somewhat later, another monument of Saint Margaret in the church of that saint at Cortona. The general arrangement of the two was similar, and in both cases angels were holding back curtains and regarding the figures with sorrow. In 1312 he commenced rebuilding the Cathedral of Prato. He did not live to see it completed, but his designs were carried out with precision.
$#POLLAIUOLO, ANTONIO DI JACOPO DEL
##Antonio di Jacopo del Pollaiuolo 1433-1498
Antonio di Jacopo del Pollaiuolo was born in Florence. He was a sculptor, goldsmith, a worker in bronze and silver ornaments and also a painter. His pictures were affected by his other occupations, showing precise, incisive line. He excelled in the knowledge of perspective and anatomy, and it is said that Antonio was the first artist who dissected the human body in order to know how to represent it. His work summarized the trends and discoveries in Florentine art of his time. His major works represented contests of strength and muscular action, such as the sculpture of "Hercules and Antaeus," and the painted "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian" (London, N.G.). Antonio was celebrated as the best goldsmith of his time, and one of the major painters, and received many important commissions from church and state, including the great patron of art, Lorenzo de' Medici. He made bronze monuments for the Popes Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII. The first is now in the Chapel of the Sacrament in Saint Peter's.
$#ROBBIA, LUCA DELLA
##Luca di Simone di Marco Della Robbia 1400-1482
Luca Della Robbia was born in Florence in 1400. He entered the sculptor's guild in 1432, and founded a family workshop which would last into the sixteenth century. He was influenced by the work of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello, though Luca would later specialize in glazed terra cotta rather than marble and bronze, giving his name to the famed "Robbia ware." The only memorials of that time are the bas-reliefs in the side of the Campanile towards the Duomo, and two unfinished reliefs in the Uffizi. The first represent "Music, Philosophy, Geometry, Grammar, and Astronomy"; "Plato and Aristotle"; "Ptolemy and Euclid"; and a "Man Playing the Lute". The unfinished ones are the "Imprisonment" and "Crucifixion of Saint Peter". There are also the reliefs made for the balustrade of an organ in the Duomo. These were undertaken in 1445 and established him a with a high rank among Italian sculptors. They represented youths dancing, singing, and playing on musical instruments. He executed one of the finest of the many cinque-cento tombs for the Bishop Benozzo Federighi of Fiesole. A portion of the decorations of this tomb were enamelled tiles painted with fruits and flowers in their natural colors. In this enamel painting Luca excelled, and he made it so prominent that it has been known as Robbia ware. Luca made some changes by coloring his enamel for certain portions of the backgrounds, such as the plants, draperies, etc. Andrea, the nephew of Luca, worked with him and shared his property with another nephew, Simone, who was a shoemaker. After his death his secret of enamelling was carefully guarded by his family and created a fortune for them. They made a system of polychromatic architecture. Andrea and his son, Luca II, were employed eleven years in decorating the Ceppo Hospital, at Pistoia, with a frieze which represents the "Seven Acts of Mercy". The effect of this enamel painting is brilliant. Pope Leo X employed Luca II to pave the Loggie of the Vatican with colored tiles. Giovanni and Girolamo, brothers of Luca II, also worked in Robbia ware, and the latter went to France and was employed by Francis I in decorating his Chateau de Madrid, in the Bois de Boulogne.
$#SIGNORELLI, LUCA
##Luca Signorelli 1441-1523 ca.
Luca Signorelli was born in Cortona in 1441. This painter was very remarkable for his time. He was a pupil and collaborator of Piero della Francesca. He possessed a wonderful knowledge of anatomy and was a precursor of the manner of Michelangelo, who admired his works, and in a certain sense imitated him. His greatest work was in the Cathedral of Orvieto, where he represented the "End of the World", and the "History of Antichrist." The architectural parts were in the best classic style, the angels beautiful and graceful, the imps and the lost ones struggle with indescribable energy. Signorelli also painted in the Sistine Chapel a large fresco of the "History of Moses", and even there he holds an honorable place among the great painters whose works surround his. He had more influence on the painting of the High Renaissance than any of his Florentine contemporaries with the exception of Leonardo.
$#SOLARI (OR SOLARIO), ANDREA (DI MILANO)
##Andrea Solari di Milano 1495-1522 ca.
Andrea Solari was born in Milan and belonged to a family of architects and sculptors. He was influenced by the manner and spirit of Leonardo in many of his pictures, though he lived at one time in Venice and came under the influence of that school. The modeling of his figures, especially his hands, was remarkably fine. He excelled also in beauty of tone and power of expression. Some of his later works show such a decided Flemish character that it is thought he must have visited Flanders. His works include "The Virgin with the Green Cushion" (Louvre) and "Chancellor Morona" (Milan).
$#TURA, COSIMO (COSME DA FERRARA)
##Cosimo Tura 1430-1495
Court painter to the Duke of Ferrara, Tura founded the Renaissance School of Ferrara. Though little is known about his development, his style is unmistakable, with intricate, twisted lines and brilliant color. Major works include "Allegorical Figure" (London, N.G.), "Madonna in a Garden" (Washington, D.C., N.G.), "Pieta" (Venice, Correr Museum), and the "Poverella Altarpiece" (London, N.G.).
$#UCCELLO, PAOLO DI DONO
##Paolo di Dono Uccello 1397-1475
Paolo was called Uccello on account of his love for birds and was at one time chiefly famous for his mastery of the science of linear perspective. His devotion to this study was so great that Vasari says he would often neither eat nor sleep, and when remonstrated with by his wife would only reply, "Oh! this delightful perspective!" The knowledge gained and put into practice by him was a great help to contemporary artists. Modern criticism however, emphasizes his gift for fresco, mosaic and other decorative work, and it is believed today that his preoccupation with perspective is apocryphal. Major works include the series of frescoes of the "Creation" in Florence S. Maria Novella, the "Flood" and the "Battle of San Romano", (Louvre, Uffizi and London, N.G.), His works were marked by such stiffness and exact drawing of detail, and by figures so designed that they exhibited to the fullest extent his knowledge of mathematical foreshortening.
$#ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO
##Andrea Del Verrocchio 1432-1488
Verrocchio, was first a goldsmith, then a painter, but sculpture was his first loved art and he was the outstanding sculptor in Florence during the second half of the fifteenth century. He was also one of the most influential artists and teachers of that period. His pupils included such masters as Perugino, Botticelli and Leonardo. Among the sculptured masterpieces by Verrocchio are "Christ and St. Thomas" (Or San Michele), "David," the "Madonna and Child," and the "Woman with the Lovely Hands" (Florence National Museum). As a painter he has been overshadowed by the greatness of his pupils, especially Leonardo, but his work is distinguished by a keen insight into the psychological and intellectual motivation of his subjects, his knowledge of anatomy, and the magisterial command of space. Three paintings are assigned to him with varying degrees of certainty: the "Baptism of Christ" (Uffizi), which was completed by Leonardo, the "Altarpiece of the Madonna di Piazza" (Cathedral of Pistoia), and "Tobias and the Archangel," (two versions, Uffizi and London N.G.). The "Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Saints" (Budapest) is generally credited to him, but some critics believe it to be questionable.
$#BARTOLO DI FREDI
##Bartolo Di Fredi (Bartolo Di Fredi Battilori) 1330-1410 ca.
Bartolo di Fredi was born in Siena in about 1330. Bartolo opened a combination workshop and shop in 1353. Andrea Vanni went into partnership with Di Fredi, and later, Luca di Tomme and Bartolo's son also worked with him. In 1390, Bartolo painted scenes from the "Life of the Virgin" in the San Agostino Church, of which only two scenes survive. Other works of Bartolo include "Descent from the Cross" (1382), "Madonna" (Florence, Uffizi), "Adoration of the Magi" (1830's, Siena, Pinacoteca) and "Presentation in the Temple" (Paris, Louvre) Bartolo painted in a realistic manner, employing striking colors and keen contrasts.
$#BARNABA DA MODENA
##Barnaba da Modena 1367-1383 op.
Barnaba da Modena was active from about 1367-1383. Barnaba's style was a combination of Byzantine and Giottesque, and his works include a series of Madonna and Child panels, (1367, Frankfurt), (1369, Berlin), and (1370, Turin, and a panel with four scenes, ("Coronation of the Virgin," "Trinity," "Virgin and Child," and "Crucifixion" with a predella, (1374, National Gallery, London). Barnaba's unique blend of Byzantine stylizations and conventions with Giotto's innovations made him a painter of unmistakable individuality.
$#CIMABUE,CENNI DI PEPO
##Cenni di Pepo Cimabue 1240-1301 ca.
Cenni di Pepo Cimabue was born in Florence between 1240 and 1250. It is believed that Cimabue may have been Giotto's teacher, but little is known of Cimabue's training, except that he did go to Rome in 1272 and was influenced by the classical style painters like Cavallini. There is only one work of Cimabue's which is known to be his for certain. The mosaic in the apse of Pisa Cathedral and most especially, the figure of St. John the Baptist (1302), has been documented as being Cimabue's. Cimabue was influenced by the Florentine painters such as Marcovaldo, as can be seen in a work generally attributed to Cimabue, the large "Maesta", which was originally done for the church of Saint Trinita in Florence and now housed at the Uffizi in Florence. Other works attributed to Cimabue include "Madonna of St. Francis", which is now in the Lower Church at Assisi and which has been repainted; frescos in the Upper Church in Assisi which have been partially destroyed and include "Crucifixions" and scenes from the "Life of the Virgin"; and the Crucifixes in San Domenico, Arezzo and St. Croce in Florence. The crucifixes resemble Coppo di Marcovaldo's work. Cimabue was expert at showing the feeling on his figure's faces and injected much passion into the works believed to be his. It is usually considered that Cimabue paved the way for modern art. Cimabue died in about 1302 in Pisa.
$#DUCCIO DI BUONINSEGNA
##Duccio di Buoninsegna 1255-1319 ca.
Duccio Di Buoninsegna was born in Siena about 1255. Duccio is first mentioned in 1278 and 1279 when he decorated twelve boxes for the town council and then a manuscript binding. It is not known with whom Duccio took his training. In 1285 Duccio was commissioned by the Florentine Brotherhood of the Virgin Mary to paint an altarpiece for the Rucellai Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria Novella . The altarpiece, "Rucellai Madonna" (Florence, Uffizi) broke tradition with the Byzantine period and began a new period of painting style in both Siena and Florence. Vasari states that the Madonna was actually done by Cimabue, however, it is usually attributed to Duccio. It is believed that Duccio did know Cimabue and was probably under his instruction at one time, as his early paintings definitely show a style similar to that of Cimabue. The painting features flowing movements, lavish materials and subtle coloring save for the bright ornaments. Duccio had problems with politics while he was living and was fined several times for his refusal to follow local tradition or to swear loyalty to the civic officials. From 1296 to 1297, there is a "Duche de Siene" mentioned as being in France during that period. 1302 finds Duccio back in Siena. The "Maesta Altarpiece" and "Madonna of the Franciscans" (1311, Siena, Pinocoteca) have definitely been attributed to Duccio. The "Maesta Altarpiece" is considered to be a masterpiece of fourteenth century Italian painting, and Duccio's masterpiece as well. The panels include "Madonna Surrounded by Saints" and other scenes from the "Life of Christ". Although most of the altarpiece remains in Siena, some of the panels are located in Fort Worth, Texas, London, Lugano, New York, and Washington D.C., and others are missing. Other works attributed to Duccio are located in Berne; Boston; Budapest; Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, Philadelphia and Utrecht. Duccio died in Siena in about 1318.
$#GIOVANNI DA MILANO
##Giovanni da Milano (Giovanni da Jacopa) 1350-1370 ca.
Giovanni da Milano was born in Como. He was trained in Lombardy, most likely by Stefano and Menabuoi, where he learned the techniques used by Giotto. Giovanni was active from about 1350 until about 1370. In spite of the fact that his name suggests he was "of Milan," Giovanni actually worked in Florence. He became a citizen of Florence in 1366, having lived there for about sixteen years. In 1365, Giovanni received a commission as a result of a competition to paint the frescos in the Rinuccini Chapel in St. Croces. These paintings showed the lives of Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary. Giovanni also painted a "Pieta" which is now in Florence at the Academy, and a polyptych for the church of the Ognissanti, now in Florence at the Uffizi. Giovanni has often been confused with Sassetta as well as other Tuscan masters who painted in the International Gothic tradition. Giovanni had a fine sense of color; his paintings were poetic in their use of space and his compositions are extremely well-done. He is considered to be the best of the fourteenth century Lombardy painters.
$#ASPERTINI, AMICO
##Amico Aspertini 1475-1552 ca.
Amico Aspertini was born in Bologna in about 1475. He took his training from Francia. Among his works were the frescos done between 1507 and 1509 for the Church of San Frediano in Lucca. His style was Italian Mannerist and often included personal touches which set his work apart from others'. His sketchbooks, which are now located in London at the British Museum, include drawings of various classical buildings in Rome and were done during his stay in Rome from 1500 to 1503.
$#BALDOVINETTI, ALESSO
## Alesso Baldovinetti 1425-1499
Baldovinetti was born in Florence in 1425, and it is not known for sure under whom he studied, however, his style reflects that of Domenico Veneziano. Baldovinetti was not only a painter, but also a mosaicist and stained glass designer. With Veneziano, Baldovinetti worked on the choir of Saint Egidio in Florence between 1441 and 1451. He came to be known as one of the leading mosaicists in Florence. One mosaic which is well-known covers the entire cupola of Santa Maria del Flore, Florence's leading cathedral (1454). Baldovinetti was known for his large figures, especially apparent in the Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal (1466), where he portrayed the various prophets, evangelists and others in the Church. Other examples of his art include his panel showing John the Baptist, Catherine, Lawrence and Ambrogio, and the "Trinity with St. Benedict and St. Giovanni Gualberto" (c. 1470, Florence, Accademia). The frescos of "The Nativity" and "Virgin and Child", now located in the Louvre in Paris, are two of his best known pieces. These show the Madonna simply and with great sensitivity.
Jacopo Bassano 1510/15-1592
Jacopo (or Giacomo) Bassano was born in the small town named Bassano near Venice between 1510 and 1515. Bassano's father was also a painter, as were Jacopo's own four sons, one of whom was Leandro. Jacopo worked in Bassano for most of his life, except for a brief period when he studied in Venice under the tutelage of Bonifazo Veronese. It was also in Venice that Jacopo met and became friends with Lorenzo Lotto, Palma Vecchio, and Titian. Jacopo's art was influenced later by Raphael, Tintoretto and Parmigianino. Jacopo painted in the style of the Italian Mannerists, and most of his works are of religious subjects. Jacopo's works include "The Adoration of the Shepherds" (1550) and "The Crucifixion" (1562). Into the religious works Jacopo interjected still lifes of fruit, vegetables, game and utensils. Many of his paintings reflected stormy landscapes and mountains. The art historian and painter Giorio Vasari said that Jacopo was an excellent painter of animals and helped to make religious subject paintings with still lifes popular in that time.
$#CARPACCIO, VITTORE
##Vittore Carpaccio 1472-1526 fl.
Vittore Carpaccio was born in Venice. His birthdate is uncertain, probably between 1450-1452, but he became active as a painter in 1472. Little is known of his early studies, but it is believed that he may have journeyed to the Near East and Dalmatia. He was influenced by Gentile Bellini as a young artist. Giovanni Bellini was also an influence on him, as Carpaccio worked for Giovanni as his assistant in 1507. Carpaccio may well have also been influenced by Giorgione. As Carpaccio continued his career, he kept small cards with the dates of each work, making the progress of his career clear. One of Carpaccio's most famous works is "The Legend of St. Ursula", which was painted between 1490 and 1498, and is now located at the Accademia in Venice. This was a group of paintings for the Venetian Scuola di San Orsola. As a painter, Carpaccio is known for representing in exact detail the interiors and exteriors of houses, as well as for using light to its best advantage. Carpaccio's "St. George Killing the Dragon" is a fine example of his attention to detail, especially in his foreshortening of the victim's bones, which was masterful. Carpaccio's "Knight in a Landscape" is thought by some to be the first full-length portrait ever done. Several of Carpaccio's large works for the Doges' Palace were destroyed in a fire in 1577.
$#CIMA DA CONEGLIANO,GIOVANNI BATTISTA
##Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano 1459-1517/18 ca.
Giovanni Cima da Conegliano was born in Conegliano, Veneto in about 1459. Cima travelled to Venice in about 1492 and remained in Venice for most of his life. Cima was highly influenced by Giovanni Bellini, and many of his paintings were actually imitations of that artist. One of the earliest of Cima's works was "Madonna of the Pergola" (1489), painted for San Bartolomeo in Vicenza which clearly shows the influence of Bellini. Other works include a number of altarpieces and panels, such as the "Sacred Conversation" (1493), "Baptism of Christ" (1494) and "St. Peter Martyr" (1509). Cima's works were very serious in nature. Some of his best work was in the area of landscape, where he used a calm and peaceful manner infused with serene lighting. This can be seen in the backgfound of the "Madonna of the Orange", which is now located in Venice at the Accademia.
$#SANO DI PIETRO
##Sano di Pietro 1406-1481
Sano di Pietro, whose given name was Ansano di Pietro di Mencio, was born in 1406 in Siena. He was a painter and the chief of a workshop whose production consisted of stereotypical Madonnas. Sano's style was similar to that of Sansetta's, although it was not as strong as the latter's. Sano's compositions were of a religious nature, and his best work is considered to be "The Coronation of the Virgin", which was done in 1445 and is now located at the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. Domenico di Bartolo collaborated with Sano on the project.
$#FOPPA,VINCENZO
##Vincenzo Foppa 1427/30-1515-16
Vincenzo Foppa was born in Breschia between 1427 and 1430. It is believed that he was a pupil of Squarcione, who was the teacher of Mantegna. It is also thought that he was influenced by Stefano da Verona and Jacopo Bellini. Foppa worked in Genoa, Milan, Pavia and Brescia as well as in Lombardy. He is considered to have been the leading painter in Lombardy before the arrival of Leonardo. He is also considered the founder of the Milanese school of painting. The frescos in the Portinari Chapel of Santa Eustorgia were done by Foppa in 1468. A later influence on Foppa (besides Leonardo) was Bramante. The "Ephiphany", now in the National Gallery in London, the "Crucifixion", and the "Orzinuovi Standard" (1514), in Orzinuovi at the Chiesa dei Morti, are examples of Foppa's work.
$#FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO MARTINI
##Martini Francesco di Giorgio 1439-1502
Martini Francesco di Giorgio was born in Siena in 1439. He studied under Vecchietta. Francesco was an architect, military engineer, sculptor and painter. He is believed to have invented the landmine. Francesco was most famous as an architect and is considered to be one of the greatest architects of the Renaissance. He shared a studio with Nerocio de' Landi. Francesco was invited to Urbino by Federigo da Montefeltro, where he designed the church of San Bernardino, one of the Duke's last wishes. Francesco also supervised the building of the Palazzo Ducale at Giubbio. He built fortresses at Sassocorvaro, Mondavio, Cagli and Iesi as part of his work as a military engineer. Francesco was influenced by Donatello as a sculpture and by Fra Filippo Lippi as a painter. Only a few of his sculptures and paintings have survived, one being "The Nativity", done in 1475 and now at the Pinacoteca in Siena. There are two bronze angels at the altar of the Siena Cathedral attributed to Francesco. In addition to his other undertakings, Francesco wrote a treatise on architecture.
$#GHIBERTI,LORENZO
##Lorenzo Ghiberti 1378-1455
Lorenzo Ghiberti was born in Florence in 1378. He left Florence in 1400 but went back to his native city to enter a competition in 1401. Ghiberti won the competition, which was for the right to create the second pair of bronze doors for the Bapistry in Florence. It is from these doors, and another set of doors which he made for the same project, that Ghiberti achieved fame. Ghiberti won the contest from six other participants, including the sculptor Brunelleschi (who worked in architecture from that point on as a result of losing the contest). The doors themselves, based on the New Testament, consist of twenty-eight panels and took twenty one years to complete. After finishing the first pair of doors, Ghiberti was awarded a second pair. This second set of doors used the Old Testament for its subject and had only ten panels compared to the twenty eight of the first set. Between the designing of the two sets of doors, Ghiberti's style had changed. In the second pair, the Renaissance influence is apparent, both in the relief and in the perspective of the doors. Although Ghiberti was not supposed to do other work while he was working on the doors, he did, in fact, do some other projects. These included two large statues, one of St. John the Baptist (1414) and one of St. Matthew (1419-22). As well as being the sculptor who really linked the Trecento Gothic and Renaissance styles, Ghiberti was also a goldsmith, writer and architect. He was the first artist to write his own autobiography, which was enclosed within a work called "Commentarii". Michelangelo called Ghiberti's second set of doors the "Doors to Paradise".
$#SASSETTA,STEFANO DI GIOVANNI
##Stefano di Giovanni Sassetta 1392-1450
Stefano Sassetta was born in Asciano or Cortona in 1392. Little is known about his early life, except that he was trained in the Sienese traditions of the late fourteenth century . His first known work is "The Madonna of the Snow" (1432, Florence, Contini Bonacossi Collection). Between 1425 and 1450 Sassetta was given many commissions. Although he was trained in the Sienese style, the International Gothic style is also evident in his paintings. Sassetta's works include "St. Thomas Aquinas Praying" (Budapest, National Gallery), "Vision of St. Thomas" (Rome, Vatican), "Virgin and Child" and "Mystic Marriage of St. Francis".
