Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1449-1494 Florentine painter, whose family name was Bigordi. He may have studied painting and mosaics under Alesso Baldovinetti. Ghirlandaio was an excellent technician. Keenly observant of the contemporary scene, he depicted many prominent Florentine personalities within his religious narrative paintings. Among his earliest frescoes are the Madonna with the Vespucci Family and the Last Supper (Church of the Ognissanti, Florence). He painted scenes from the life of Santa Fina (collegiate church in San Gimigniano) and frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV called him to Rome, along with Botticelli, to decorate the Sistine Chapel. He painted the Calling of the First Apostles, a scene close in spirit to Masaccio. He returned to Florence to work on the frescoes in the Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinita. He introduced Sassetti, Corsi, Poliziano, the Medici, and many other contemporaries as participants in the life of St. Francis. Ghirlandaio's most famous achievement is his fresco cycle of the life of Mary and St. John the Baptist for the choir of Santa Maria Novella. Michelangelo served an apprenticeship with him at this time and probably worked on these frescoes. Other examples of his art are the Adoration of the Magi (Uffizi); another Adoration (Hospital of the Innocents); a mosaic of the Annunciation for the Cathedral; a portrait of Francesco Sassetti and his son (Metropolitan Mus.);
Death and Assumption of the Virgin
1486-90 Fresco Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence In the final scene, painted in the large pointed tympanum on the left wall of the chapel, two events, the Death and Assumption of the Virgin, are depicted in one picture. In this last story "... is the Passing of Our Lady and her Assumption, with troops of angels, a number of figures, landscapes and other ornaments, in which Domenico's easy and skilful style usually abounds" (Vasari). The composition and execution of this poorly preserved fresco are poorer than in the other pictures in the chapel. In its solemn character the scene is comparable with the considerably better Obsequies in the Saint Fina and the Sassetti chapels. Mary's body is lying on a bier in an open space, mourned by the grieving Apostles. Four angels are carrying long candles or palm leaves. The dead Mary's pale face is old, her cheeks sunken. But in a glory above her, a young and beautiful Virgin with a rosy face is being carried up to heaven by angels to meet her son. Artist: GHIRLANDAIO, Domenico Painting Title: Death and Assumption of the Virgin , 1451-1500 Painting Style: Italian , , religious