Neroccio di Bartolomeo Landi

NEROCCIO DI BARTOLOMEO LANDI. - Sienese painter, b. 1447, d. 1500, also active as a sculptor (statue of St. Catherine, 1470, Siena, Oratory of Fonte Branda; Testa-Piccolomini monument, 1485, Siena, Cathedral).

A pupil of Vecchietta and, until 1475, an artistic companion of Francesco di Giorgio Martini, whose brother-in-law he was, he reflects, like them, in the incisiveness of his contours and the modelling of his draperies, the influence of Florentine plasticism; but he softens its rigor through gentle transitions of chiaroscuro that spread a characteristic luminosity through the composition. The typology of his Madonnas, of delicate and aristocratic beauty, their faces barely stirred by a smile, is well attuned to it. Two polyptychs in the Gallery of Siena (nos. 282 and 278) and one in the church of Montisi (Siena), all three signed and dated respectively 1478, 1492 and 1496, as well as the drawing for the Sibilla Ellenpontica in the pavement of the cathedral of Siena (1483), constitute the principal stages of his documented activity. Of the many attributed works it will suffice to recall the Stories of St. Bernardino and the Stories of St. Benedict (respectively in the Palazzo comunale of Siena and in the Uffizi) which, together with the Annunciation of Yale University, are believed to have been executed in collaboration with Fr. di Giorgio and therefore before 1475; the Biccherna panel of the State Archive of Siena dated 1480; the Madonna (no. 281) of the Gallery of Siena, the Madonna and Saints of the Kress collection in New York; the Claudia of the National Gallery of Washington and the Female Portrait of the same gallery, which is one of the few portraits of the Sienese school of the 15th century. - See pl. CXIV.

Amalia Mezzetti