Alessio baldovinetti biography of christopher columbus

Alesso or Alessio Baldovinetti 14 October — 29 August was an Italian early Renaissance painter and draftsman. Baldovinetti was born in Florence to a rich noble family of merchants. In he was registered as a member of the Guild of St. Luke: "Alesso di Baldovinetti, dipintore. He was a follower of the group of scientific realists and naturalists in art which included Andrea del Castagno , Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano.

Tradition says that he assisted in the decorations of the church of S. Egidio, however no records confirm this. These decoration were carried out during the years — by Domenico Veneziano and in conjunction with Andrea del Castagno.

Alessio Bal- dovinetti, in the chapel of Santa Trinita, in Florence.

That he was commissioned to complete the series at a later date is certain. In Alesso was employed to paint the great fresco of the Annunciation in the cloister of the Annunziata basilica. The remains as we see them give evidence of the artist's power both of imitating natural detail with minute fidelity and of spacing his figures in a landscape with a large sense of air and distance; and they amply verify two separate statements of Vasari concerning him: that "he delighted in drawing landscapes from nature exactly as they are, whence we see in his paintings rivers; bridges, rocks, plants, fruits, roads, fields, cities, exercise grounds, and an infinity of other such things," and that he was an inveterate experimentalist in technical matters.

His favourite method in wall-painting was to lay in his compositions in fresco and finish them a secco with a mixture of yolk of egg and liquid varnish. This, says Vasari, was with the view of protecting the painting from damp; but in course of time the parts executed with this vehicle scaled away, so that the great secret he hoped to have discovered turned out a failure.

In he furnished a cartoon of the Nativity , which was executed in tarsia by Giuliano de Maiano in the sacristy of the cathedral and still exists. From date the groups of four Evangelists and four Fathers of the Church in fresco, together with the Annunciation on an oblong panel, which still decorate the Portuguese chapel in the basilica of San Miniato , and are given in error by Vasari to Piero del Pollaiuolo.

In Alesso undertook important works for the church of Santa Trinita on the commission of Bongianni Gianfigliazzi : first, to paint an altar-piece of the Holy Trinity with saints, a work that he finished in ; next, a series of frescoes from the Old Testament which was to be completed according to contract within five years, but actually remained on hand for fully twenty-six.