Domenico di Bartolo

Domenico di Bartolo (birth name Domenico Ghezzi), born in Asciano, Siena, was a Sienese painter of the early Renaissance period. In the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari says that Domenico was the nephew of Taddeo di Bartolo. Influenced by the new Florentine style of painting, Domenico di Bartolo was the only Sienese painter of his time to receive commissions from clients in Florence. In Siena, he was employed by Lorenzo di Pietro (known as Vecchietta), to help execute the fresco The Care of the Sick, in the Pilgrim's Hall of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. Domenico is first recorded in 1420 when he and several other Sienese artists, is documented as part of a project to paint in Siena Cathedral. He is first recorded as a master in 1428, in a list of the painters' guild (ruolo dei pittori). His first surviving signed and dated work comes from 1433: The Madonna of Humility and Four Music-Making Angels. In 1433 he also painted the Virgin and Child Surrounded by Saints. A year later, in 1434, Domenico provided a design for a pavement plaque in Siena Cathedral, based on a drawing of the Emperor Sigismund, who stayed in Siena from 1432...