Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1445-1510 Italian painter and draughtsman. In his lifetime he was one of the most esteemed painters in Italy, enjoying the patronage of the leading families of Florence, in particular the Medici and their banking clients. He was summoned to take part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, was highly commended by diplomatic agents to Ludovico Sforza in Milan and Isabella d Este in Mantua and also received enthusiastic praise from the famous mathematician Luca Pacioli and the humanist poet Ugolino Verino. By the time of his death, however, Botticelli s reputation was already waning. He was overshadowed first by the advent of what Vasari called the maniera devota, a new style by Perugino, Francesco Francia and the young Raphael, whose new and humanly affective sentiment, infused atmospheric effects and sweet colourism took Italy by storm; he was then eclipsed with the establishment immediately afterwards of the High Renaissance style, which Vasari called the modern manner, in the paintings of Michelangelo and the mature works of Raphael in the Vatican. From that time his name virtually disappeared until the reassessment of his reputation that gathered momentum in the 1890s   Related Paintings of Sandro Botticelli :. | Stories of Virginia (mk360 | Older Kneeling Mago | Discovery of the Body of Holofernes (mk36) | Our Lady of Angels with the two sub | Fortitude |
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Calvaert, Denys
Flemish, 1540-1619 Flemish painter and draughtsman, active in Italy. In 1556-7 he was inscribed in the registers of the painters' corporation in Antwerp as a pupil of the landscape painter Kerstiaen van Queboorn (1515-78). Calvaert went to Bologna c. 1560, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. There he came under the protection of the influential Bolognini family and entered the workshop of Prospero Fontana the elder. After about two years he left Fontana to work with Lorenzo Sabatini, with whom he collaborated on several pictures, including the Holy Family with the Archangel St Michael (Bologna, S Giacomo Maggiore) and an Assumption (Bologna, Pin. N.). Calvaert's oeuvre is composed almost exclusively of religious works, ranging in size from vast altarpieces to small devotional pictures on copper. This sets him apart from other Netherlandish painters, notably those of the school of Prague, for whom Classical mythology was a constant source of inspiration. His first signed and dated work was Vigilance (1568; Bologna, Pin. N.); thereafter he developed a more original style, as in the Noli me tangere (Bologna, Pin. N.).
Willam Bartram
American naturalist and talented artist 1739-1823
BASSA, Ferrer
Spanish painter active 1324-1348 His workshop was in Calle Cucurulla, Barcelona, and commissions from a variety of patrons, mostly royal, are documented. In 1324 he was paid for painting two chapels and two crosses for the church at Sitges. Between c. 1333 and c. 1335 he illuminated a book on the Usages of Barcelona and Customs of Catalonia for Alfonso IV of Aragon, and in 1335 he was paid for an altarpiece. Further payments, in 1339 and 1340, were for two altarpieces for the chapel of the Aljaferea Palace (a Moorish palace) in Saragossa. About 1340 he received a commission for an altarpiece of St Hilary for the diocese of Lleida (Sp. Lerida). In 1341 Bassa had begun work on three altarpieces for the Episcopal See at Lleida, commissioned by Ot de Montacada (c. 1290-1341). In 1342 Peter IV (the Ceremonious) of Aragon asked his wife, Maria of Navarre, to send him a Book of Hours illuminated by Ferrer Bassa, and in the same year the artist was also paid for a commission by Queen Constanza of Mallorca. In 1343 and 1344 he was paid for an altarpiece and other works for the chapel of the Aljaferea Palace in Saragossa and for an altarpiece for the chapel of the royal palace at Barcelona. In 1344 Bassa was commissioned to decorate the S Miguel Chapel, then the cell of the abbess in the Pedralbes Monastery, Barcelona, although he only started work in 1346. He was involved in further royal commissions in 1345, including an altarpiece for the chapel of the castle at Perpignan.