now Uffizi, with fragments in situ) are among the most im-
portant surviving Quattrocento secular decorations;
Castagno and his patron abandoned well-established
iconographic prototypes to introduce Florentine literary
figures (Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio) and Florentine
military leaders (Niccola Acciaiuoli, Farinata degli Uberti,
and Pippo Spano) into the company of heroic women
from antiquity (Esther, the Cumaean Sybil, and Queen To-
myris). These impressive sculpturesque figures in illu-
sionistic niches reveal Castagno’s sources, for in
monumentality and boldly massed drapery they recall
Masaccio, while in the lucid, sharp outlines, vigorous
drapery patterns, and even in pose they convey the impact
of the sculpture of Donatello. They offer an appreciation
of human dignity and accomplishment that is central to an
understanding of Renaissance attitudes.
Further reading: Marita Horster, Andrea del Castagno
(Oxford, U.K.: Phaidon, 1980); John R. Spencer, Andrea
del Castagno and his Patrons (Durham, N.C. and London:
Duke University Press, 1991).
Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530) Italian painter
Andrea d’Agnolo di Francesco was born in Florence, the
son of a tailor (hence “del Sarto”). At the age of seven he
was apprenticed to a goldsmith, shortly thereafter to a Flo-
rentine painter Gian Barile (otherwise unknown), and fi-
nally to the eccentric but technically brilliant master PIERO
DI COSIMO. Internal stylistic evidence suggests that he
may have spent time with Raffaellino del Garbo
(c. 1466–c. 1524), a painter also known for technical pro-
ficiency, although not for innovation. VASARIreports that
like many young artists Andrea drew from cartoons by
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, thus absorbing the
achievements of the leading artists of the High Renais-
sance. In style and temperament his leaning was to
Leonardo. By about 1506 he had taken a studio near the
Piazza del Grano with FRANCIABIGIO, a pupil of AL-
BERTINELLI, the latter a partner of Fra Bartolommeo. The
early interest in Leonardo and the connection to Fra Bar-
tolommeo through Franciabigio reinforced Andrea’s inter-
est in classic compositional solutions, modulated tonal
harmonies, and SFUMATO, as shown in The Marriage of St.
Catherine (1512–13; Dresden). He befriended the young
sculptor Jacopo SANSOVINO, pupil of Andrea Contucci
(called Sansovino), and he and Franciabigio moved into a
new studio near the SS. Annunziata which they shared
with Jacopo. The two painters soon received commissions
for frescoes for the entrance courtyard of the Annunziata
(1509–14; Birth of the Virgin, Arrival of the Magi, scenes
from the life of St. Filippo Benizzi) and for the little clois-
ter of the Confraternity of the Scalzo (1511–26; scenes
from the life of John the Baptist).
Andrea was influenced as much by the sculpture of
the two Sansovinos as by the painters of his generation.
The figures of Christ and John the Baptist and of Justice
in the Scalzo grisaille murals are quoted directly from
identical figures by Andrea Sansovino; Jacopo Sansovino
made models for figures which appeared in Andrea
del Sarto’s paintings, for instance, the Madonna and the
St. John in the Madonna of the Harpies (1517; Uffizi,
Florence). The painter collaborated with Jacopo on the
design and decoration of the mock façade for the Floren-
tine Duomo, one of the elaborate temporary ornaments
commissioned for the state visit of Pope Leo X to Florence
in 1515. He also worked on stage sets with one of his as-
sistants, Bastiano (Aristotile) da SANGALLO, a member of
the prominent family of architects. These contacts with
sculptors and architects help to explain Andrea’s highly
developed sense of volume and perspective in his figures
and architecture. His figures display an earthbound natu-
ralism in their breadth and volume, yet they exude grace
and sensitivity. In 1516 he married the widow Lucrezia,
whose features served as the model for his broad-faced
Madonnas.
By 1509, with Leonardo in Milan, Michelangelo and
Raphael in Rome, and Fra Bartolommeo visiting Venice,
Andrea took his place as the premier painter in Florence.
Gestures, poses, and compositional groupings in his
paintings represent a continual dialogue with his distin-
guished contemporaries, translated into a pictorial lan-
guage distinctly his own. Tender blues, delicate violets,
and rose tints applied in soft brushwork but with a
supreme understanding of form are the pictorial counter-
part of the psychological balance between emotion and re-
straint in his figures (see Plate I).
Andrea worked almost his entire career in Florence.
He traveled to France by invitation of Francis I in spring
1518, returning to Florence by summer the following year.
His interest in Leonardo was renewed by the presence of
that great master at the French court, while two new
paintings that he saw there, the St. Michael and the Holy
Family of Francis I (both Louvre, Paris), presented a point
of contact with Raphael’s mature Roman style, as witness
Andrea’s Caritas (1518; Louvre) and Pietà (1524; Palazzo
Pitti, Florence). Among Andrea’s pupils and assistants are
to be counted the leaders of the next generation of Flo-
rentine artists. His use of unconventional effects of color
and light were signals picked up by these young painters,
particularly the great “mannerists” PONTORMOand ROSSO
FIORENTINO, as well as Vasari and SALVIATI. Andrea weath-
ered the siege of Florence (1529–30) but died at the end
of September 1530 in the plague that followed it.
Further reading: Antonio Natali, Andrea del Sarto
(New York: Abbeville, 1999); John K. G. Shearman, An-
drea del Sarto, 2 vols (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press,
1965).Andreoli, Giorgio (Maestro Giorgio) (c. 1470–1553)
Italian potter
He was born at Intra on Lake Maggiore into a familyAAnnddrreeoollii,, GGiioorrggiioo 1177