Benozzo
Gozzoli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Benozzo Gozzoli (c. 1421 – 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter
from Florence. He is best known for a series of murals in the
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi depicting festive, vibrant processions with
wonderful attention to detail and a pronounced International Gothic
influence.
He was born Benozzo di Lese in the village of Sant'Ilario a
Colombano around 1421, and moved with his family to Florence in
1427. According to Giorgio Vasari, in the early part of his career
he was a pupil and assistant of Fra Angelico: some of the works in
the convent of San Marco of Florence were executed by Gozzoli from
Angelico's design. In 1444-1447 he collaborated with Lorenzo
Ghiberti and his studio on the Paradise Doors of the Battistero di
San Giovanni.
On May 23, 1447
Gozzoli was in Rome with Fra Angelico, called by Pope Eugene IV to
carry out the fresco decoration of a chapel in the Vatican Palace.
Later the two worked until June 1448 in the Cappella Niccolina for
Nicholas V. From 1449 is a banner with Madonna and Child in the
church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, perhaps designed by Angelico.
In Rome he executed also, in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, a fresco of St
Anthony and Two Angels. Benozzo's last collaboration with Angelico
is the vault of the Duomo di Orvieto in Umbria.
In 1449 he left Angelico, and moved to Umbria. From 1450 is an
Annunciation in Narni, signed OPU[S] BENOT[I] DE FLORENT[IA]. In the
monastery of San Fortunato, near Montefalco, he painted a Madonna
and Child with Saints and Angels, and three other works. One of
these, the altarpiece representing St Thomas receiving the Girdle of
the Virgin, is now in the Lateran Museum and shows the affinity of
Benozzo's early style to Angelico's. He next painted in the
monastery of S. Francesco, Montefalco, filling the choir with three
registers of subjects from the life of the saint, with various
accessories, including portrait heads of Dante, Petrarch and Giotto.
This work was completed in 1452, and is still marked by the style of
Angelico, crossed here and there with a more distinctly Giottesque
influence. In the same church, in the chapel of Saint Jerome, is a
fresco by Gozzoli of the Virgin and Saints, the Crucifixion and
other subjects.
He remained at
Montefalco (with an interval at Viterbo) probably till 1456,
employing Pier Antonio Mezzastris as assistant. Thence he went to
Perugia, and painted in a church a Virgin and Saints that is now in
the local academy.
Soon afterwards her
returned to his native Florence, the epicenter of Quattrocento art.
Between 1459 and 1461, Gozzoli painted what may be his most
important work: his frescoes of the Magi in the Magi Chapel of the
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, the Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem, and
in the tribune, a composition of Angels in Paradise. Gozzoli
incorporated portraits of the Medici family into his fresco The
Journey of the Magi. Gozzoli also included his self-portrait in the
procession, with his name written around the rim of his cap. His
'Virgin and Child with Saints of 1461, in the National Gallery,
London, belongs also to the period of this stay in Florence.
In 1464 Gozzoli
left Florence for San Gimignano, where he executed some extensive
works; in the church of Sant'Agostino, a composition of St.
Sebastian protecting the City from the Plague of this same year,
1464; over the entire choir of the church, a triple course of scenes
from the legends of St Augustine, from the time of his entering the
school of Tegaste on to his burial, seventeen chief subjects, with
some accessories; in the Pieve di San Gimignano, the Martyrdom of
Sebastian, and other subjects, and some further works in the city
and its vicinity. Here his style combined something of Filippo Lippi
with its original elements, and he received co-operation from Giusto
d'Andrea.
He stayed in this
city till 1467, and in 1469 began the vast series of mural paintings
in the Campo Santo of Pisa with which his name is specially
identified. There are twenty-four subjects from the Old Testament,
from the Invention of Wine by Noah to the Visit of the Queen of
Sheba to Solomon. He contracted to paint three subjects per year for
about ten ducats each. It appears, however, that this contract was
not strictly adhered to, for the actual rate of painting was only
three pictures in two years. Perhaps the great multitude of figures
and accessories was accepted as a set-off against the slower rate of
production.
By January 1470 he
had executed the fresco of Noah and his Family, followed by the
Curse of Ham, the Building of the Tower of Babel (which contains
portraits of Cosimo de' Medici, the young Lorenzo, Angelo Poliziano
and others), the Destruction of Sodom, the Victory of Abraham, the
Marriages of Rebecca and of Rachel, the Life of Moses, etc. In the
Cappella Ammannati, facing a gate of the Campo Santo, he painted
also an Adoration of the Magi, wherein appears a portrait of
himself.
All this enormous mass of work, in which Benozzo was probably
assisted by Zanobi Macchiavelli, was performed, in addition to
several other pictures during his stay in Pisa (including the Glory
of St. Thomas Aquinas, now in the Louvre), in sixteen years, lasting
up to 1485. This is the latest date which can with certainty be
assigned to any work from his hand. Gozzoli died in Pistoia in 1497,
perhaps of a pestilence.
In 1478 the Pisan
authorities had given him, as a token of their regard, a tomb in the
Campo Santo. He had likewise a house of his own in Pisa, and houses
and land in Florence.
