BALDOVINETTI, ALESSIO (ALESSO). - Painter, b. in Florence on 14 Oct. 1425, d. there on 31 Aug. 1499. In 1458 he received the commission for an Annunciation for the loggia of the Ospedale degli Innocenti; in '60, that of a Nativity for the small cloister of the Santissima Annunziata; in '61 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 also worked, leaving almost no trace; in '66 he began the decoration of the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal at S. Miniato al Monte: the Evangelists and the Doctors of the Church first, then the Prophets and finally the Annunciation; in '71 he frescoed the Gianfigliazzi chapel in the church of S. Trinità, of which paintings, apart from the altarpiece with the Trinity now in the Florentine gallery of the Accademia, little remains; in his late years he restored the mosaics of the facade of S. Miniato al Monte and of the baptistery of Florence.
Already in the earliest surviving work, three little scenes for the silver cupboard in the church of the Santissima Annunziata, now in the museum of S. Marco in Florence, executed, in the other parts, by Angelico and collaborators, B. shows that he was formed in the circle of Angelico, of Domenico Veneziano and of Andrea del Castagno. In relation to those masters, however, he assigns a function of its own to line, crisp and vibrant, but not constructive; a function that would remain extremely active throughout his work. The Annunciation of the Uffizi indeed reveals suggestions of Angelico and of Domenico Veneziano; but the life of the figures is fixed with a particular immediacy, which derives its effect from the contour, thin and springing; in the Nativity of the Santissima Annunziata, which B. completed in tempera, so that today the fresco is almost effaced, the incisive contour of the figures and objects still stands out; in the late Trinity of the Accademia angels, cherubim and saints seem enclosed within "... contours with vigour and firmness, as if of iron wire" (A. Venturi, Predella di A. B. in Casa Buonarroti a Firenze, in L'Arte, 30 [1927], p. 34). But in the Nativity the landscape also stands out, very broad and low in relation to the composition, set within a cubic space, as in the paintings of Paolo Uccello and of Piero della Francesca. The art of the latter exerts an evident influence on B., especially in the years 1462-66: besides in the aforementioned fresco, in the Saints of the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal and in the Madonna of the Louvre. With effects, moreover, opposite to those of Piero della Francesca: for, while Piero feels the image abstractly in space, over which colour spreads in an undisguised way, B., analytical and sensitive, tends above all toward the psychology of the figures and, through the vibration of line, defines in them an acute sense of spirituality that constitutes their most evident characteristic. This holds also when the painter turns his attention specifically to problems of relief and perspective, as in the Prophets of S. Miniato al Monte, the culminating point of Baldovinetti's plastic-spatial capacities; but even in them the psychological interest appears predominant. And such it is in what is considered the artist's masterpiece, the Annunciation of the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal, in which the faces of Mary and Gabriel reveal a figurative-sentimental delicacy that anticipates Leonardo. Vasari has emphasized, in B.'s life, his intense preoccupation with technical research. The desire to improve the execution of paintings, especially that of fresco, indeed led the painter to many experiments and innovations: one of them, in fact, probably contributed to the ruin of the works. Even if he did not achieve absolute results, B. is one of the most significant exponents of the complex taste of his time. He left a "Libro di ricordi". - See Pl. XLVII.
Bibliography3 works
Mary Pittaluga