Piero di Cosimo - Definition

Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci (c.1480)
Oil on panel, 57 x 42 cm Musée Condé, Chantilly

Piero di Cosimo (also known as Piero di Lorenzo) (1462-1521) was an Italian painter. The son of a Florentine goldsmith, he apprenticed under Cosimo Rosseli, whom he assisted in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. He was noted for his rather eccentric personality and unorthodox interpretations of mythological subjects. He also wrote a relatively famous treatise on geometry. Piero's students included Andrea del Sarto. He was found dead at the foot of a flight of stairs.

His works include:

• Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci (c. 1480)
• The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot (http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pinfo?Object=508+0+none) (c.1490) painted as an altarpiece for the Capponi chapel in the church of Santo Spirito, Florence
• A Satyr mourning over a Nymph (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG698) (c.1495)
• The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus (http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/European/1937.76.html) (c.1499)
• Allegory (http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pinfo?Object=304+0+none) (c. 1500) (oil on panel)
• The Nativity with the Infant Saint John (http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pinfo?Object=518+0+none) (c. 1500) (oil on canvas)
• Fight between the Lapiths and the Centaurs (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG4890The) (c.1500-15)
• La Maddalena (http://www.galleriaborghese.it/barberini/it/maddalen.htm) (1501)
• The Return from the Hunt (http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/view1.asp?dep=11&full=0&item=75%2E7%2E1) (c.1505–7)
• Perseus Frees Andromeda (http://www.arca.net/uffizi/img/1536.jpg) (c.1513) (oil on wood)
• The Building of a Palace (http://www.ringling.org/pages/art_museum_collection_8.htm) (c.1515/20) (Oil on panel)
• Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel of Moses and the Tables of Law and Sermon on the Mount and Healing of the Leper.

Giorgio Vasari includes a biography of Piero di Cosimo in his Lives of the Artists.