- Gozzoli, Benozzo
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orig. Benozzo di Leseborn 1420, Florencedied Oct. 4, 1497, PistoiaItalian Renaissance painter.Early in his career he assisted Lorenzo Ghiberti on the east doors of the Baptistery in Florence and Fra Angelico on frescoes in Florence, Rome, and Orvieto. His reputation today rests on the breathtaking fresco cycle The Journey of the Magi (1459–61) in the chapel of Florence's Medici-Riccardi Palace. His work as a whole was undistinguished, however. He painted several altarpieces and a series of 25 frescoes of Old Testament scenes, now badly damaged, for the Camposanto in Pisa (1468–84).
Detail with Lorenzo de' Medici from "Procession of the Magi," fresco by Benozzo ...SCALAArt Resource* * *
▪ Italian painteralso called Benozzo di Leseborn c. 1421, Florence [Italy]died Oct. 4, 1497, Pistoiaearly Italian Renaissance painter whose masterpiece, a fresco cycle in the chapel of the Medici-Riccardi Palace, Florence, reveals a new interest in nature (a careful study of realistic detail in landscape and the costumed figure) and in the representation of human features as definite portraiture.Gozzoli's formative collaborations included those with Lorenzo and Vittorio Ghiberti on the third bronze door of the Baptistery, Florence, and with Fra Angelico (1447) on some frescoes in the chapel of Pope Nicholas V, Vatican, and on the ceiling of the Chapel of San Brizio in the cathedral at Orvieto. At Viterbo (after 1453) he painted nine frescoes of scenes from St. Rose's life. After painting an altarpiece at Perugia for Collegio Gerolominiano (1456) and visiting Rome in 1458, he returned to Florence, where he painted the frescoed chapel of the Medici-Riccardi Palace (dating from 1459 to 1460). Gozzoli's work as a whole has a rather empty facility, but in the latter commission, his “Procession of the Magi” reveals an artist of great decorative talent, with a pronounced gift for landscape and portraiture. By 1463 he was working at San Gimignano on a cycle of 17 scenes from the life of St. Augustine in the choir of Sant'Agostino (last scene signed and dated 1465) and on a fresco of St. Sebastian (1464). Between 1469 and 1485 he painted his most extensive commission, a series of 25 frescoes of Old Testament scenes for the Campo Santo (cemetery), Pisa.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
