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.);
Portrait of the Donor Nera Corsi Sassetti
1485 Fresco Santa Trinit? Florence "In two pictures on either side he painted Francesco Sassetti kneeling, and Madonna Nera, his wife and her children, the latter being in the scene above where the boy is raised to life, with some beautiful maidens of the same family" (Vasari). The two donors are in prayer on either side of the altar, as if they are taking part in the Adoration of the Shepherds depicted on the altarpiece. Linking the frescoes and the central panel painting in this way, Ghirlandaio creates what is almost a triptych. Astonishingly enough, the wife, Nera Corsi Sassetti, is occupying the traditionally more distinguished position on the right of the religious scene. At the base is the painted inscription: A.D. MCCCCLXXX. XV decembris. This could be the initial date of the work whose conclusion is in the great altarpiece with the Nativity, dated 1485. Artist: GHIRLANDAIO, Domenico Painting Title: Portrait of the Donor Nera Corsi Sassetti , 1451-1500 Painting Style: Italian , , portrait