Michelino Molinari da Besozzo

Michelino Molinari da Besozzo (c. 1370 – c. 1455) was a notable fifteenth-century Italian painter and illuminator, who was widely praised for his work. He worked mostly in Milan and Lombardy and was employed by the Visconti family, rulers of Milan. Michelino's work follows the traditions of the Lombard School and maintains the Trecento style.

Personal life Michelino was born in 1388 and died sometime after 1450. It is believed that he is referred to in some documents from the period by the name Michele da Pavia, as he lived in Pavia at the beginning of his career, where he left some frescoes inside the Visconti Castle. Michelino lived in Milan from 1439 until his death, where he worked for the Viscontis, rulers of Milan. When his patron, the first Duke of Milan Gian Galeazzo Visconti, died and Giovanni Maria Visconti came to power, Michelino moved to Venice and Vicenza to avoid Giovanni's difficult reign. In Venice, Michelino was in contact with painter Gentile da Fabriano (Gentile di Niccolò di Massio).

Michelino had a son, Leonardo, who was also a manuscript illuminator and worked between 1428 and 1488. Leonardo’s work includes notable frescoes that remain in the church of San Giovanni a Carbonara in Naples, Italy.

Career Michelino Molinari da Besozzo, Eulogy for Giangaleazzo Visconti, 1402-1403, 14.5 x 9.5 in (37.5 x 24 in), Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. lat. 5888, fol. 1, Paris As a fifteenth-century Italian artist of the Lombard School, Michelino’s illuminations follow a linear form of the International Gothic Style and are abstract, yet appear to be naturalistic because of the detailed nature of the artist’s work. Remaining examples of Michelino’s work deny the classicizing style of the Renaissance, instead maintaining the more rigid forms of the outdated, Gothic style of the Proto-Renaissance. The book, now bound with 19th-century velvet with silver clasps, includes 22 full-page illuminations with floral borders; however, half of the original miniature illuminations are now missing. Throughout the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, artists continued to propagate saintly artistic creation by showing St. Luke painting the Madonna and Child. Michelino's version features St. Luke standing as he works on a gable-topped panel, while in Georgio Vasari's 1565 fresco of the scene that resides in the church of Santissima Annuciata, St. Luke paints a portrait of an other-worldly sitter, who is also captured in Vasari's painting. thumb Michelino da Besozzo, The Marriage of the Virgin, ca. 1430, tempera and gold on wood, 25 5/8 x 18 3/4 in. (65.1 x 47.6 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art

Maturity Michelino's 1410 visit to Venice was incredibly significant to the overall development of Venetian painting in the following two decades. This work, made from tempera on wood with raised gold ornament, depicts an elderly Joseph presenting a young and timid Virgin with a ring. The humour found in the expressions of the surrounding rejected men highlights Michelino's skill through his ability to inject movement into the scene with expression. Marriage of the Virgin mirrors the crowded composition of Michelino's work with illuminated manuscripts; furthermore, the curvilinear forms in the work are emblematic of the International Gothic Style.

Legacy and significance Michelino was given great recognition for his work and skill during his lifetime and after, and is largely unknown today because so few of his works have survived. Humanist Umberto Decembrio called Michelino “the most distinguished artist of our time.” Contemporaries referred to Michelino as the "supreme painter." Furthermore, the Duke of Berry sent an agent to interview Michelino, who reported that Michelino was “the most excellent painter among all the painters in the world.”

Major works Mystical Marriage of St Catherine, 1420 (Pinacoteca, Siena) St. Luke Painting the Virgin (Morgan Library and Museum, New York) Marriage of the Virgin (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) Fragment of a Historiated Initial from a Choir Book: Christ in Majesty, 1400 (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland) Eulogy for Giangaleazzo Visconti, 1403 (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris)