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Bicci di Lorenzo
Bicci di
Lorenzo was a Renaissance painter, sculptor and architect based in Florence.
He lived from 1373 to 1452, thus coming 40 years after the death of Giotto,
but dying 20 years before the birth of Michelangelo and 30 years before
the birth of Raphael. Bicci di Lorenzo’s father, Lorenzo di Bicci,
and his son, Neri di Bicci, were also painters.
This fascinating narrative painting exhibits an animated, playful style,
but one that has not yet developed into the highly polished, naturalistic
work that was to come in the later Renaissance.
The Original Altarpiece
This small painting (oil on panel) was once a predella from an altarpiece
made for the church of S. Niccolo in Cafaggio, Florence. A predella is
a horizontal band of small narrative scenes which sits under the central
panel of an altarpiece. The central panel in this case is now in Parma
and shows the Virgin and Child with four angels. The predella comprised
at least five small panels illustrating themes from the Life of St Nicholas:
his birth, pilgrims at the shrine of the saint, St Nicholas resuscitating
three youths, St Nicholas providing dowries for three sisters and, this
one, St Nicholas Banishing the Storm.
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