Andrea Orcagna

Andrea Orcagna, real name Andrea di Cione (c. 1308-c. 1368), Italian painter, sculptor, mosaicist, and architect, born in Florence, the son of a goldsmith. He entered the Florentine painters' guild in 1343 and the stone masons' guild in 1352. He was influenced both by the traditional, hieratic Byzantine style and by the new naturalism of Giotto and Andrea Pisano, and was regarded as the leading master of his day. Orcagna often collaborated with his three brothers, Nardo, Matteo, and Jacopo. Orcagna's only extant paintings are a series of frescoes (c. 1350) depicting The Triumph of Death, The Last Judgement, and Hell, for Santa Croce, Florence; and an elaborate altarpiece, The Redeemer (1357), for the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, Florence. In this work the expressive monumental figures stand out boldly from the gold Byzantine background.

In 1355 Orcagna began work on the famous sculptured tabernacle for Or San Michele, Florence; it is an elaborate structure decorated in late Gothic style but with strong modelling and an emotional expressiveness that foreshadows the realism and humanism of Renaissance art. From 1359 to 1362 he directed the construction of Orvieto Cathedral and made mosaics for its façade. From 1364 to 1367 he directed the building of Florence Cathedral.