Francesco Botticini

The painting most often mentioned of Francesco Botticini is his, Assumption of the Virgin. The work depicts a towering composition of a cathedral-like dome in the sky, filled with saints surrounding the Virgin and set against a sweeping landscape background. This piece showed Botticini as an early practitioner of perspective painting.

The artist was born Francesco di Giovanni Botticini. His father painted playing cards as an artisan, influencing his son to work independently after his brief training. His studies were under the prolific painter Neri di Bicci (1419 – 1492) for one year. Botticini also studied under another of Bicci’s pupils, Cosimo Rosselli (1439 – 1507) and also with the influential Andrea del Verrocchio (1435 – 1488). His 1470 piece, The Three Archangels, now in the Uffizi Gallery, was once thought to be Verrocchio’s.

As exampled by his works in the cloistered church in Empoli, Botticini painted in a highly decorative style. Operating his own workshop by 1469, his decorative style was praised much, but still overshadowed by contemporaries such as Filippo Lippi (1457 – 1504) and Sandro Botticelli (1444 – 1510).