LORENZO da VITERBO. — Properly L. di Jacopo di Pietro Paolo da V., painter, born c. 1437 in Viterbo and died after 1476. The only dates that can be related to his activity are those of 1469 and 1472.
The frescoes of the Mazzatosta Chapel at S. M. della Verità in Viterbo suffered considerable damage in the 1944 bombing and were reassembled using a new method by the Istituto centrale del restauro of Rome (v. RESTAURO). On the vault, in each compartment, are the figures of a Prophet, an Evangelist, a Father, and a Doctor of the Church: on the rear wall, the Assumption; on the right wall, the Annunciation and the Adoration of the Child; and on the left wall, the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple and the Marriage, beneath which appears the date 1469 with the initials L. V. The Saints on the entrance arch, on the other hand, are by a different artist. What immediately strikes one in these frescoes is their clear derivation from Benozzo Gozzoli, who must have introduced him into the new Renaissance milieu, dominated by the greatest Florentines active around the middle of the century, so that L. da V. Piero della Francesca. The evident influence of Benozzo led R. Longhi to seek the painter’s earliest works in the frescoes of the Palazzo Orsini in Tagliacozzo, datable to shortly after 1464; and C. Brandi to attribute to him, albeit doubtfully, certain frescoes on the island of Bisentina in Lake Bolsena, dating from after 1462. His contacts with Piero della Francesca, on the other hand, led to the attribution to L. of the Evangelists (of which unfortunately very little remains) frescoed on the vault of the former chapel of S. Michele in S. Maria Maggiore in Rome; several scholars continue to insist that they should instead be attributed to Piero himself. The fortunate discovery of the panel found at Cerveteri may finally provide a useful contribution to determining L.’s further stylistic development. It depicts the Virgin Enthroned with the Child and Two Saints and bears the artist’s signature and the date 1472; this is the only panel painting by this painter known to date, and as studies have progressed he has emerged as one of the most important figures in the history of the art of central Italy.