BOTTICINI, FRANCESCO

BOTTICINI, FRANCESCO. - Painter, b. in Firenze in 1446, d. there in 1497. On the basis of the sole documented work (the altarpiece for the collegiate church of Empoli, 1484–91), criticism has reconstructed the artist’s personality, attributing to him works in which influences of Lippi, Verrocchio, A. del Castagno, Cosimo Rosselli, Pollaiolo, or Botticelli succeed one another or coexist, and has concluded by describing him as an “eclectic.” B. nevertheless possesses a delicate grace of his own (St. Sebastian, at the Uffizi, formerly the property of Cinotti; panels with the Madonna adoring the Child), and a pleasantly narrative taste (Feast of Herod, in the Empoli altarpiece) which recalls Ghirlandaio and may explain the traditional assertion of an early training under Neri di Bicci.