Lorenzo Monaco

Lorenzo Monaco (1370 – 1425) was an Italian painter and miniaturist of the late Gothic to early Renaissance age. He was born Piero di Giovanni. Little is known about his youth, apart from the fact that he was apprenticed in Florence. He has been considered the last important exponent of the Giotto style, before the Renaissance revolution that came with Fra Angelico and Masaccio. Life He was probably born in Florence and not in Siena, as it was believed until recently. Nothing is known of his early years, but he was certainly trained in painting in Florence. Formed in the same tradition as Giotto, he was influenced not only by him but also by that artist's followers Spinello Aretino and Agnolo Gaddi. He later worked with Gaddi in painting the predella of the altarpiece in the Nobili Chapel in Santa Maria degli Angeli. In 1390 he entered the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, as a novice, where he took his vows in 1391. Here he worked for a long time as an illuminator in the scriptorium and as a panel painter, consecrating himself at the time as the greatest painter of sacred subjects in Florence. The three chorales in the Laurentian Library date back to the last decade of the 14th century, and where executed for his own Camaldolese monastery, already perceive a personal style, characterized by taut linearism and a cold chromatic range. Starting from around 1404, his style shows the influence of the International Gothic, influenced by the first works of Lorenzo Ghiberti and of Gherardo Starnina, who had returned in those years from Spain. From that year, stands out The Pietà in the Galleria dell'Accademia of Florence, a work dominated by a nervous line and a certain emotional tension. In the numerous paintings with a gold background, he created a style characterized by extremely elongated figures, with the sinuous lines of the crescent-shaped drapery, sharp edges, the bright and rich colors (profusion of gold and lapis lazuli), the hinted gestures, and an almost annulled space. His works, in general, showed images with a strong spiritual value, detached from reality, where the profane and naturalistic elements are usually almost completely absent.