LORENZO, BICCI DI

1373 Florence 1452

Bicci di Lorenzo was born into an artistic dynasty and was a highly successful painter. As the son of Lorenzo di Bicci (c. 1350–1427), he took over his father's flourishing painting workshop, which received numerous commissions in and around Florence during the early fifteenth century. Later, after Bicci di Lorenzo's death (1452), the workshop passed to the third generation, namely his son, the industrious Neri di Bicci (1418–1492).

As one of the leading painters in Florence and the surrounding area, Bicci di Lorenzo was extremely active and received some of the most important commissions of his time. For example, he executed the fresco (no longer extant) of Sant'Egidio in Florence, where he worked alongside the most famous Renaissance painters of the day, Domenico Veneziano (c. 1410–1461) and Piero della Francesca (1416–1492). In addition to the many paintings, he also received several commissions for the cathedral and created the fresco decoration in the Compagni Chapel in Santa Trinità. The frescoes in the choir chapel of San Francesco in Arezzo had progressed as far as the vaults when Bicci di Lorenzo died while the work was still in progress. Piero della Francesca completed the work with his series of paintings of the "Legend of the True Cross", with which he was to create one of the most famous pictorial cycles of the Renaissance.