BENEDETTO di BINDO. - Sienese painter, a native of the Val d'Orcia, lame. He is recorded in the Breve dei pittori senesi of 1389. In 1411-12 he worked, together with others, on the decoration of the sacristy of the cathedral of Siena, and in 1414 he painted the Maestà of Porta Camollia. He died at Perugia on 19 Sept. 1417.
The only certain work of his that remains to us are the eight doors for a reliquary cupboard, or "arliquiera", once in the sacristy of the Cathedral, now in the museum of the Opera del Duomo of Siena: Bacci has recently reconstructed the history of this "complex and rare work of Sienese craftsmanship", whose painted decoration was entrusted to B. di B., who completed it in 1412, having availed himself of the help of Giovanni di Bindino, of Adamo di Colino and of the gilders Lando di Stefano and Giusa di Frosino. On the inside of the doors are painted eight stories of the Invention and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in honor of the most precious relic - a fragment of the wood of the Cross - venerated in the Cathedral, while the outside, divided into thirty-two panels, bears as many half-figures of angels carrying scrolls with the title of the relic preserved in the corresponding compartment of the cupboard. Although in the Stories of the Holy Cross of the "arliquiera" one perceives a stiffening of the dignified academic manner of Taddeo di Bartolo, under whom B. di B. probably trained, they nevertheless suffice to secure for their author an honorable place beside, and perhaps above, the better-known Florentine illustrators of the same theme.
Bibliography
Enzo Carli