Benozzo Gozzoli

Benozzo Gozzoli
Self-portrait from fresco Procession of the Magi
Born	c. 1421 Florence, Republic of Florence
Died	1497 Pistoia, Republic of Florence
Nationality	Florentine
Known for	Painting, Fresco
Movement	High Renaissance

Benozzo Gozzoli (c. 1421 – 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. He is best known for a series of murals in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi depicting festive, vibrant processions with fine attention to detail and a pronounced International Gothic influence. He is considered one of the most prolific fresco painters of his generation. While he was mainly active in Tuscany, he also worked in Umbria and Rome.

He was born Benozzo di Lese in the village of Sant'Ilario a Colombano around 1421. He moved with his family, including the painters Francesco, Gerolamo, and Alesso di Benozzo, to Florence in 1427. According to the 16th century Italian biographer Giorgio Vasari, Benozzo Gozzoli was in the early part of his career a pupil and assistant of Fra Angelico. Some of the works in the convent of San Marco of Florence were executed by Gozzoli after Fra Angelico's designs.

Between 1444 and 1447 he collaborated with Lorenzo Ghiberti and his workshop on the Paradise Doors of the Battistero di San Giovanni. On May 23, 1447 Gozzoli was with Fra Angelico in Rome, to where they were called by Pope Eugene IV to carry out the fresco decoration of a chapel in the Vatican Palace. Later the pair worked until June 1448 in the Cappella Niccolina for Nicholas V. From 1449 dates a banner with Madonna and Child in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, perhaps designed by Angelico. In Rome he executed also, in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, a fresco of St Anthony and Two Angels. Benozzo's last collaboration with Angelico is the vault of the Duomo di Orvieto in Umbria.