FIORENZO di LORENZO. - Painter, b. in Perugia ca. 1445, d. before 1525. Educated in the traditionalist Umbrian milieu that had in Niccolò da Foligno and Bonfigli its most authoritative representatives, having come to know the art of Pietro Perugino, when the latter, around 1470, returned to Perugia rich in the experiences gained in Florence and Arezzo in the circle of Piero della Francesca, he turned toward the manner of that great master. In spite of this, in his painting F. di L. always preserved a somewhat provincial taste, harsh and sweet at the same time, and a meticulous craftsmanly care that represent the essential characteristics of the painter and, in a certain sense, his greatest merits.
Among the earliest works of F. di L., in some of which he also shows himself approaching the manner of Benozzo Gozzoli and Pinturicchio, particular mention should be made of the triptych with the Madonna, the Child and four saints, coming from the Confraternity of Justice and now in the Pinacoteca of Perugia, in which the painter is still bound to traditional modes. A development of his style in a Peruginesque direction is instead evident in the other panel of the Perugian Pinacoteca with the Adoration of the Shepherds, in the Madonna of Mercy of the church of S. Francesco at Montone, dated 1482, in the Madonna with the Child, St. Sebastian and St. Christopher of the Städel Institute in Frankfurt am Main, in the St. Jerome in Yale University, in the Tabernacle with Sts. Peter and Paul, in the pentaptych with the Madonna and four saints, coming from the church of the Misericordia and now in the Pinacoteca of Perugia, and in numerous other panels that are assigned to him by the many scholars who have taken an interest in this modest but engaging painter. - See plate LXXXIX.
BIBLI.v. in Thieme-Becker, XI, pp. 598-600.
Emilio Lavagnino