| |
Historical Artist - Piero di Cosimo (1462 - 1521)
Pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, Piero traveled to Rome with his teacher in 1482 to assist with the
Sistine Chapel frescoes. It was during this time that di Cosimo became entranced with the
mythology and religious imagery that his later work consisted of. Piero di Cosimo was later
influenced by Signorelli and Leonardo da Vinci. His personal character and his paintings were
deemed unusual by his colleagues. He became a recluse and followed a strict diet of hard-boiled
eggs. With the exception of the landscape background in Rosselli's fresco of the Sermon on the
Mount, in the Sistine Chapel, there is no record of any fresco work from his brush. On the other
hand, Piero enjoyed a great reputation as a portrait painter: the most famous of his work is in
fact the portrait of a Florentine noblewoman, Simonetta Vespucci, mistress of Giuliano de'
Medici. According to Vasari, Piero excelled in designing pageants and triumphal processions for
the pleasure-loving youths of Florence, and gives a vivid description of one such procession at
the end of the carnival of 1507, which illustrated the triumph of death. Piero di Cosimo
exercised considerable influence upon his fellow pupils Albertinelli and Bartolomeo della Porta,
and was the master of Andrea del Sarto.
Contemporary Italian Artists
Art Galleries in Italy
|
