BENVENUTO di GIOVANNI. - Son of Meo del Guasta. Sienese painter. Born 13 Sept. 1436, died c. 1518; his activity is widely documented by numerous archival records and by a substantial group of signed and dated works.
At 17 he collaborated with the Vecchietta, his master, on the frescoes of S. Giovanni in Siena (Two Miracles of St. Anthony): but his first entirely autograph and dated works are two panels in the gallery of Volterra, from 1466.
From 1475 is the resplendent triptych in the church of S. Michele Arcangelo at Montepertuso (Murlo), while the altarpiece with lunette that the friars of S. Domenico in Siena paid him in 1483 is among the most significant compositions concluding his first period, characterized by exquisite freshness of color and an extremely clear modeling, in which echoes of Sassetta and subtle elegances close to Neroccio are also perceptible.
In the grand Ascension, signed and dated 1491, in the Pinacoteca of Siena, his style already appears changed: forms become broader and heavier, modeling assumes a dry geometric quality, and color grows turbid; Umbrian influences are noted in the landscape and the pathetic expression of the figures. Among the dated works of his final period should be recalled the Assumption in the Metropolitan Museum of New York (1498), the large altarpiece in S. Lucia at Sinalunga (1509), and a lunette with the Return of Gregory XI from Avignon in the Museo delle Pie Disposizioni in Siena (1501), particularly interesting for the rarity of the subject. Small, graceful Madonnas by B. are found in museums of Europe and America. B. also executed the cartoons for various scenes and figures of the inlaid floor of the Siena Duomo, where he painted the large monochrome saints in the drum of the dome. Instead, the antiphonaries that in 1482 he painted for the Opera del Duomo of Siena are lost. His son Girolamo (b. 1470) continued his style with less vigor.