DELLA GATTA, BARTOLOMEO (PIER DI ANTONIO DEI). — Camaldolese monk, painter, illuminator, and architect, born in Florence in 1448 and died at Arezzo in 1502 or 1503. Having entered the convent of the Angeli as a young man, in 1470 he was at Arezzo in that of S. Maria in Gradi. In 1487 he became prior and subsequently abbot of the convents of S. Clemente and S. Maria in Gradi. As a young man he devoted himself to illumination, as is demonstrated by a choir book he painted in the convent of Monte Oliveto Maggiore.
At Arezzo he became acquainted with the art of Piero della Francesca and had the opportunity to draw close to Luca Signorelli and Pietro Perugino, whom he followed to Loreto in 1479. In the same year he painted two panels depicting s. Rocco, now in the Aretino Museum.
In addition to these works, D.G. painted in Arezzo, for the church of S. Bernardo, the Apparition of s. Bernardo and, within two tondi, the Annunciation, as well as a penitent s. Girolamo, a fragment of the frescoes in the Gazzari Chapel, now in the sacristy of the cathedral of Arezzo; and in Castiglion Fiorentino, the Madonna Enthroned among Four Saints for the collegiate church and a S. Michele Arcangelo in the sacristy of the same collegiate church. In addition to the influences of Signorelli, Perugino, and Melozzo, the easily influenced master at times also inclined toward the forms of Pollaiolo and Botticelli himself, seeking to fuse the contributions of the more specifically Florentine culture with those deriving from the great tradition of Piero della Francesca, his initial foundation.