About the Artist

Pinturicchio (c. 1454 Perugia-1513 Siena), whose real name was Bernardino di Betto Biago, was first apprenticed in the workshop of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, but was also strongly influenced by Perugino, for whom he served as assistant from 1481 to 1483 in the painting of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In addition to Perugia and Rome the painter was also active in Orvieto, Spoleto, Spello, and Siena, where he took up residence in 1502. Pinturicchio spent his first six years in the city decorating the Biblioteca Piccolomini ("little library"). The artist was chiefly interested in frescoes, but also completed religious narrative paintings and portraits. He cultivated a charming, sometimes genre-like narrative style with decorative effects but usually without dramatic elements. His coloration is of great luminosity. 'Pinturicchio was the first in the Italian Renaissance to introduce grotesque ornamentation derived from antiquity into his work. Other works by the artist include Portrait of a Boy, c. 1480, Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden; The Burial of St. Bernard, c. 1484, Bufalini Chapel, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome; Pala de Santa Maria Dei Fossi, 1495-1498, Galleria Nazionale, Perugia.