Renaissance - I

Benozzo Gozzoli (c. 1421 – 4 October 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. A pupil of Fra Angelico, Gozzoli is best known for a series of murals in the Magi Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, depicting festive, vibrant processions with fine attention to detail and a pronounced International Gothic influence. The chapel's fresco cycle reveals a new Renaissance interest in nature with its realistic depiction of landscapes and vivid human portraits. Gozzoli is considered one of the most prolific fresco painters of his generation. While he was mainly active in Tuscany, he also worked in Umbria and Rome.

 

Andrea del Castagno (c. 1421 – 19 August 1457) was an Italian Renaissance painter in Florence, influenced chiefly by Masaccio and Giotto di Bondone. His works include frescoes in Sant'Apollonia in Florence and the painted equestrian monument of Niccolò da Tolentino (1456) in Florence Cathedral. He in turn influenced the Ferrarese school of Cosmè Tura, Francesco del Cossa and Ercole de' Roberti.
Andrea del Castagno was born at Castagno, a village near Monte Falterona, not far from Florence. During the war between Florence and Milan, he lived in Corella, returning to his home after its end. In 1440 he moved to Florence under the protection of Bernadetto de' Medici. Here he painted the portraits of the citizens hanged after the Battle of Anghiari on the facade of the Palazzo del Podestà, gaining the nickname of Andrea degli Impiccati.

Little is known about his training, though it has been hypothesised that he apprenticed under Fra Filippo Lippi and Paolo Uccello. In 1440–1441 he executed the fresco of the Crucifixion with Saints in the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, whose perspective-oriented construction and figures shows the influence of Masaccio.

In 1442 he was in Venice where he executed frescoes in the San Tarasio Chapel of the church of San Zaccaria. Later he also worked in St Mark's Basilica, leaving a fresco of the Death of the Virgin (1442–1443).

Back in Florence, he designed a stained window depicting the Deposition for the Duomo. On 30 May 1445 he became a member of the Guild of the Medicians. From the same year is the fresco of Madonna and Child with Saints in the Contini Bonacossi Collection (Uffizi).
In 1449–1450 he painted the Assumption with Saints Julian and Miniato for the main altar (in the Saint Julian Chapel) of the church of San Miniato fra le Torri in Florence (now in Berlin).
In the same years he collaborated with Filippo Carducci to paint a series of Illustrious People for the Villa Carducci at Legnaia. These include Pippo Spano, Farinata degli Uberti, Niccolò Acciaioli, Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, the Cumaean Sibyl, Esther and Tomyris.

Also from around 1450 is the Crucifixion in London, as well as the David with the Head of Goliath and the Portrait of a Man, both in Washington.
Between January 1451 and September 1453 he completed the frescoes of Scenes of the Life of the Virgin left unfinished by Domenico Veneziano in the church of Sant'Egidio, Florence (now lost).[8] In October Filippo Carducci commissioned him to paint frescoes for his villa at Soffiano, of which today an Eve and a ruined Madonna with Child survive.

In 1455 Andrea del Castagno worked in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata (frescoes with the Trinity with Saints Jerome, Paula and Eustochium and Saint Julian and the Redeemer, the former showing a stressed realism). A Crucifixion for Sant'Apollonia from those years is also attributed to him. In 1456 he executed the fresco of the Equestrian Monument of Niccolò da Tolentino in the Duomo of Florence, paralleling the similar painting by Paolo Uccello portraying Sir John Hawkwood.