LORENZO da VITERBO. — Properly L. di Jacopo di Pietro Paolo da V., painter, b. ca. 1437 in Viterbo and d. after 1476. The only dates referable to his activity are those of 1469 and 1472.
The frescoes of the Mazzatosta Chapel in S. Maria della Verità in Viterbo suffered considerable damage in the bombing of 1944 and were recomposed with a new method by the Istituto Centrale del Restauro in Rome (v. RESTA URO). On the vault, in each compartment, are the figures of a Prophet, an Evangelist, a Father, and a Doctor of the Church; on the back 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 Espousals, beneath which appears the date 1469 with the initials L. V. The saints on the entrance arch, however, are by a different artist. Immediately striking in these frescoes is the clear derivation from Benozzo Gozzoli, who must have introduced him to the new Renaissance environment dominated by the greatest Florentines active around the middle of the century, so that even for 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 Palazzo Orsini in Tagliacozzo, datable to shortly after 1464; and C. Brandi to ascribe to him, albeit tentatively, some frescoes on the island of Bisentina in Lake Bolsena, dating after 1462. 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 in the vault of the old chapel of S. Michele in S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, for which many insist on attribution to Piero himself. The fortunate discovery of the panel, found at Cerveteri, can finally add a useful contribution to determining the further stylistic evolution of L. It represents the Virgin in Majesty with the Child and two saints and bears the artist’s signature and the date 1472; this is the only known panel painting to date of this painter, who, as studies have progressed, has revealed himself as one of the most important figures in the history of the art of central Italy.