DOMENICO, VENEZIANO. Venetian painter, as is evident from his name, active in Florence, where he d. in 1461. Very little is known about him; it may be assumed that he received his first instruction in Venice. In 1438 (the first certain date concerning him) he wrote from Perugia to Piero de' Medici a letter in which he dared to place himself alongside two of the most celebrated Florentine painters of the period, Filippo Lippi and fra' An-
gelico; the following year he painted frescoes with Piero della Francesca, who was his pupil, in S. Maria Nuova; they no longer exist. He was influenced by Masaccio, Paolo Uccello and Pisanello.
Very few of his works survive: the most important is the Madonna and Four Saints in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, in which the light and festive colours—pale green, bluish and delicate pink—shine in the luminous, transparent atmosphere and herald the art of Piero della Francesca.
The predella of this painting was dismantled, and its fragments have been identified in the Contini collection in Florence, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge,
the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin and the Duveen collection in New York. Other works by D. are: a fragmentary fresco representing the Madonna Enthroned with Two Saints, formerly in Florence on Via dei Cerreani and now in the National Gallery in London; SS. Giovanni Battista and Francesco,
painted in fresco in S. Croce, although these are also attributed to Andrea del Castagno. At the exhibition of Italian art held in London in 1930, a Madonna with the Child was attributed to him, apparently with good reason. Some also attribute to him a Nativity in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin and a Madonna in the Berenson collection at Settignano.
D. V., even alongside the major Florentine painters of the fifteenth century, stands out as a strong individual personality, distinguished by highly singular gifts of colouring and atmospheric transparency.