BALDOVINETTI, ALESSIO (ALESSO). — Painter, born in Florence on 14 October 1425, died there on 31 August 1499. In 1458 he was commissioned to paint an Annunciation for the loggia of the Ospedale degli Innocenti; in 1460, a Nativity for the small cloister of the Santissima Annunziata; in 1461 he was invited to complete a work by Domenico Veneziano in the church of S. Egidio, where Andrea del Castagno and Piero della Francesca had worked, though scarcely any trace of them remains; in 1466 he began the decoration of the chapel of the cardinal of Portugal at S. Miniato al Monte: first the Evangelists and the Doctors of the Church, then the Prophets, and finally the Annunciation; in 1471 he frescoed the Gianfigliazzi chapel in the church of S. Trinità, of whose paintings little remains, apart from the altarpiece with the Trinity, now in the Florentine gallery of the Accademia; in his later years he restored the mosaics on the façade of S. Miniato al Monte and of the baptistery of Florence.
Already in the earliest surviving work, three small scenes for the cupboard of the silverware in the church of the Santissima Annunziata, now in the Museo di S. Marco in Florence, executed in its other parts by Angelico and his collaborators, B. demonstrates that he was formed in the milieu of Angelico, Domenico Veneziano, and Andrea del Castagno. In relation to those masters, however, he assigns a distinctive role to line, clear and vibrant, though not constructive; this role would remain extremely active throughout his work. The Annunciation in the Uffizi in fact reveals the influence of Angelico and Domenico Veneziano; but the life of the figures is rendered with a particular immediacy, deriving from the outline, delicate and darting; in the Nativity of the Santissima Annunziata, which B. completed in tempera, so that today the fresco is almost obliterated, the incisive outlines of the figures and objects still stand out; in the late Trinity of the Accademia, angels, cherubim, and saints seem enclosed within “... contours with vigor and firmness, as though made of iron wire” (A. Venturi, Predella di A. B. in Casa Buonarroti a Firenze, in L'Arte, 30 [1927], p. 34). But the landscape also stands out in the Nativity, extremely broad and low in relation to the composition, set within a cubic environment, as in the paintings of Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca. The art of the latter exerted an evident influence on B., especially in the years 1462–66: not only in the fresco mentioned above, but also in the Saints of the chapel of the cardinal of Portugal and in the Madonna in the Louvre. The effects, however, were opposite to those of Piero della Francesca: for while Piero apprehends the image abstractly in space, over which the exposed color spreads, B., analytical and sensitive, tends above all toward the psychology of the figures and, through the vibration of the line, defines in them an acute sense of spirituality that constitutes their most evident characteristic. This is so even when the painter directs his attention specifically to problems of relief and perspective, as in the Prophets of S. Miniato al Monte, the culmination of Baldovinettian spatial-plastic capacities; yet even in these works, psychological interest appears predominant. And this is likewise true of what is considered the artist’s masterpiece, the Annunciation in the chapel of the cardinal of Portugal, in which the faces of Mary and Gabriel reveal a figurative and sentimental delicacy that anticipates Leonardo. Vasari emphasized, in the life of B., his intense concern with technical experimentation. The desire to improve the execution of paintings, especially frescoes, in fact led the painter to many experiments and innovations; indeed, some of them probably contributed to the deterioration of the works. Even though he did not achieve absolute results, B. is one of the most significant representatives of the complex taste of his time. He left a “Libro di ricordi.” — Vedi Tav. XLVII.