Alesso di
Baldovinetti
Baldovinetti
was born in Florence to a family of a rich merchant. In 1448 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 1441—1451 by Domenico Veneziano and in
conjunction with Andrea del Castagno. That he was commissioned to
complete the series at a later date (1460) is certain.
In 1462 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 1463 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 1466 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 Pollaiuolo. A fresco of the
risen Christ between angels inside a Holy Sepulchre in the chapel of
the Rucellai family, also still existing, belongs to 1467.
In 1471 Alesso
undertook important works for tile church of Santa Trìnita on the
commission of Bongianni Gianfigliazzi. First, to paint an
altar-piece of the Virgin and Child with six saints; this was
finished in 1472: 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 sixteen. In 1497 the
finished series, which contained many portraits of leading
Florentine citizens, was valued at a thousand gold forms by a
committee consisting of Cosimo Rosselli, Benozzo Gozzoli, Perugino
and Filippino Lippi; only some defaced fragments of it now remain.
Meanwhile Alessio had been much occupied with other technical
pursuits and researches apart from painting. He was regarded by his
contemporaries as the one craftsman who had rediscovered and fully
understood the long disused art of mosaic, and was employed
accordingly between 1481 and 1483 to repair the mosaics over the
door of the church of S. Miniato, as well as several of those both
within and without the baptistery of the cathedral. He died at in
the hospital San Paolo, August 29, 1409, and was buried in San
Lorenzo.
