BONFIGLI, BENEDETTO. - Painter, born in Perugia about 1420 and died there in 1496. He was one of the leading representatives of the fifteenth-century Umbrian school. He is first recorded in 1445; in 1450 he painted in Rome, at the Vatican; in 1453 he was again in Perugia.
Trained on the examples of the Tuscan masters, he fused the influences of B. Gozzoli and the Angelico, while always retaining a precious Gothic linearism derived from the Sienese Domenico di Bartolo. He nevertheless possesses an originality of his own: a lucid narrative vein, festive colour, delicate treatment of the elegant and refined figures, and a taste for particular decorative details that become stylistic elements (for example, the small flowering garlands adorning the angels’ hair). His principal works are in Perugia: the frescoes in the chapel of the Priori (now in the Pinacoteca), with the Storie di s. Ludovico e s. Ercolano (1454), treated with a pleasing narrative taste not uninfluenced by F. Lippi; the Annunciazione (Pinacoteca), and the Madonna degli Angeli (there).
B. also painted numerous gonfalons. - See Pl. CVIII.