Sassetta

Stefano di Giovanni di Consolo, known as il Sassetta (–1450) was a Tuscan painter of the Late Gothic of the Sienese School style, adapting some Renaissance innovations.

Life and Works

The name Sassetta has been associated with him, mistakenly, only since the 18th century but is now generally used for this artist.

His first certain work, which originally had his signature, is the Arte della Lana altarpiece (ca. 1423–1426), fragments of which are now divided among various private and public collections. He died from pneumonia contracted while decorating the Assumption fresco on the Porta Romana of Siena. The work was finished by his pupil Sano di Pietro.

Many consider Sassetta's fusing of traditional and contemporary elements as integral to the move from the Gothic to the Renaissance style of painting in Siena.

The figure in black in the painting is an unbeliever, who has been found out in the process of receiving Communion. The officiating priest offers him the host on a plate, which is pictured miraculously spurting blood. The unbeliever has been struck dead instantly, and the creature above his face is a tiny black devil which has swooped down to snatch away his soul to the depths of Hell. The other men pictured are Carmelite monks, caught in expressions of shock, amazement and disgust. The painting is a "carefully staged, meticulously created illusion" which commemorates the Miracle of Bolsena which is said to have taken place in 1263. The fact that it was produced by a Sienese artist in Siena, and shipped to the Tiber Valley town in late spring 1444 also speaks to Sassetta's fame in his time period.

Bernard Berenson bequeathed many of Sassetta's painting from his Florence Villa to Harvard University, in what became the Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence. A 3D computer-assisted reconstruction of the altarpiece's surviving parts is featured in Sassetta: The Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece, edited by Machtelt Israels and released in 2009.

Selected works

Meeting of The Meeting of St. Anthony the Great and St. Paul of Thebes , tempera on wood, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA Saint Thomas Aquinas's Vision before the Cross, (1423), Pinacoteca Vaticana Saint Thomas Aquinas inspired by the Holy Spirit, tempera on wood, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Madonna of the Snows Altarpiece (–1432), Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence A predella of three works at the Detroit Institute of Arts San Domenico da Cortona Polyptych , Diocesan Museum, Cortona, Italy The Journey of the Magi (1435) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA Saint Anthony the Hermit Tortured by Devils, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena Virgin and Child Adored by Six Angels (1437–44), Louvre Museum, Paris, France The Burning of a Heretic (1423), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia Last Supper (1423), Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena Ecstasy of Saint Francis (1437–44), Villa I Tatti, Settignano, Italy The Miracle of the Eucharist, Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, United Kingdom Saint Francis receiving Stigmata (1437–44), National Gallery, London, United Kingdom Mystic Marriage of St. Francis , Musée Condé, Chantilly, France