Sassetta

Sassetta (c. 1392–1450), born Stefano di Giovanni, was the leading painter of fifteenth-century Siena. His origins are uncertain. Some records suggest Siena; others point to Cortona, since his father Giovanni is called "da Cortona." What's clear is that by the 1420s, he was the most sought-after artist in the city.

Siena was conservative. While Florence embraced the new Renaissance style, Sienese patrons preferred the older Gothic tradition. Sassetta found a middle path. He kept the gold backgrounds, the elegant line, the spiritual intensity of his predecessors, but added a new naturalism: real light falling on real landscapes, figures with weight and volume. The result was something original.

His first documented work, an altarpiece for the Wool Guild in 1423, established his reputation. The Madonna of the Snow altarpiece for Siena Cathedral followed. But his greatest achievement was the double-sided San Francesco altarpiece for Borgo San Sepolcro (1437–44), nearly six yards tall with a gilded frame. Art historian Bernard Berenson called it "the Rolls Royce of early Renaissance painting." Today its panels are scattered across twelve museums in Europe and America. Sassetta was a landscape painter too, unusual for his time, and recent scholarship has explored his contribution to that genre. He died in 1450 from pneumonia caught while painting a fresco on the Porta Romana gate. His work is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.