GOZZOLI, BENOZZO

(1420-1497)

A pupil ofFra Angelicowhom he assisted in theChapel of Nicholas V(1448) at the Vatican. Gozzoli was born inFlorenceto a tailor. In the 1450s, he worked in Montefalco, near Perugia, where he painted a cycle in the Church of San Fortunato, now in fragments. Thealtarpiecefor the church's mainapse, theMadonna della Cintolais now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.Gozzoli also renderedfrescoesat San Francesco di Montefalco that depicted the life ofSt.Francis, the church's patron saint. In 1456, he was in Perugia creating theMadonna and Child with Saints(Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell' Umbria), and two years later inRomerendering the frescoes in the Albertoni Chapel at Santa Maria d'Aracoeli (late 1450s), of which only a damagedSt.Anthony of Paduahas survived. Gozzoli's most important commission is the fresco of theProcession of the Magiin the chapel at thePalazzo Medici, Florence (c. 1459). It reenacts a procession that took place once a year through the streets of Florence carried out by members of the city's most aristocraticconfraternity, the Compagnia de' Re Magi, of which theMediciwere members. In the work, the youngLorenzo de' Mediciand his father, Piero de Gouty, are shown on horseback, and Gozzoli himself is included. He is the man with an inscription on his hat that readsOpus Benotti(the work of Benozzo). After this, Gozzoli went to Pisa and there he rendered a series of frescoes from the Old Testament in the Campo Santo (beg. 1469), damaged by bombing in 1944. Gozzoli's works show his full command ofperspectiveand his interest in rendering courtly scenes and in describing all the fine details of figures, objects, and backdrops. Also, the emphasis is on brilliant colorism and heavy gilding. Gozzoli died in 1497 while working in Pistoia, perhaps from theplague.