DELLA GATTA, Bartolomeo (Pier di Antonio dei). - Camaldolese monk, painter, miniaturist and architect, b. in 1448 in Florence, d. in Arezzo in 1502 or 1503. Having entered the convent of the Angeli at a young age, in 1470 he was in Arezzo in that of S. Maria in Gradi. In 1487 he was prior and then abbot of the convents of S. Clemente and S. Maria in Gradi. As a young man he applied himself to miniature painting, as is shown by a choir book painted by him in the convent of Monte Oliveto Maggiore.

In Arezzo he became acquainted with the art of Piero della Francesca and had occasion to approach Luca Signorelli and Pietro Perugino, whom in 1479 he followed to Loreto. In the same year he painted two panels depicting St. Roch, now in the Museo Aretino.

DELLA GATTA, BARTOLOMEO - <em>The Assumption of the Virgin</em> - Cortona. Church of S. Domenico. — DELLA GATTA, BARTOLOMEO - *The Assumption of the Virgin* - Cortona. Church of S. Domenico.(phot. Alinari)

He was then in Rome, where he collaborated with Perugino on the Sistine fresco depicting the Delivery of the Keys, and assisted Signorelli in the scene of the Promulgation of the Law and the Death of Moses. In Rome the painter also became acquainted with the art of Melozzo da Forlì, whose forms are reflected in the Assumption painted for S. Domenico in Cortona. Then in Castiglion Fiorentino he painted for the church of S. Francesco the scene of the Saint Receiving the Stigmata, commissioned from him in 1487.

Besides these works, D.G. painted in Arezzo for the church of S. Bernardo the Apparition of St. Bernard and, within two roundels, the Annunciation, and a penitent St. Jerome, a fragment of the frescoes of the Gazzari chapel, now in the sacristy of the Arezzo cathedral, and in Castiglion Fiorentino the Madonna Enthroned among Four Saints for the collegiate church and a St. Michael the Archangel in the sacristy of the same collegiate church. Besides the influences of Signorelli, Perugino and Melozzo, the master, being easily influenced, sometimes inclined also toward the forms of Pollaiolo and of Botticelli himself, seeking to fuse the achievements of the more properly Florentine culture with that which derived from the great stock of Piero della Francesca, his initial foundation.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: G. Vasari, La vita di F. B. D. G., con commento di A. Del Vita, Firenze 1912; Venturi, VII, II, pp. 414-39; B. C. K., s. v. in Thieme-Becker, XIII, pp. 245-46; M. Salmi, Catalogo della mostra delle opere di B. D. G. e della sua scuola, Arezzo 1930; A. Del Vita, s. v. in Enc. Ital., XII (1931), pp. 546-47.

Emilio Lavagnino

@incollection{ec4_della_gatta_bartolomeo_pier_di, author = {Lavagnino, Emilio}, title = {Della Gatta, bartolomeo (pier di antonio dei)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {1371--1372}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/della-gatta-bartolomeo-pier-di-antonio-dei} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

Della Gatta, Bartolomeo (Pier di Antonio dei)

About this entry