VENEZIANO, DOMENICO

(ca. 1410-1460)

Italian painter, prob-ably a native ofVenice, who settled inFlorencein 1439 and un-der the influence of the works ofMasaccioadopted the new Flo-rentine Renaissance style of painting, though his use of color is reminiscent of the Venetian tradition. Very little is known about any part of his career, especially its beginning, and his productiv-ity seems to have been rather limited. Yet he influenced later Flo-rentine painting with his typically Venetian emphasis on color and light, and the ablest painter of the next generation,Piero della Francesca, is recorded as one of his assistants in the execution of a major commission, a fresco cycle of scenes from the life of the Virgin in the church of St.Egidio at Florence, which does not sur-vive. The Renaissance art historianGiorgio Vasariattributed to him the introduction of oil paints into Tuscan art. This claim is no longer tenable, but he may have been among the earliest Tuscans to use oil effectively.

Veneziano's best-known surviving work is the so-called St. Lucy altarpiece, a colorful and striking series of paintings for the church of Sta. Lucia de'Magnoli at Florence, which subsequently was divided. The central panel,Madonna and Child with Saints(ca. 1445), is now in the Uffizi Museum in Florence, but the predella panels are scat-tered. Other works of reasonably certain attribution are the earlyAdo-ration of the Magi(1439-1441), theCarnesecchi Madonna(ca. 1440), and three renditions of the Virgin and Child. One of his last works isSaints John the Baptist and Francis(1445-1461).