Piero di Cosimo

Piero di Cosimo, real name Piero di Lorenzo (1462-1521), Italian painter of religious works and imaginative mythological scenes. He was born in Florence, where he studied with the painter Cosimo Rosselli. In 1482 he accompanied Rosselli to Rome and assisted him in painting frescoes in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican. Subsequently Piero returned to Florence and gained a reputation as one of the most original painters of the Renaissance. Although Piero was influenced by the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, and other great painters of his day, he was never imitative. His panels, especially those depicting Classical themes, are characterized by imaginative and bizarre representations of human figures and animals set against skilfully executed landscape backgrounds. Among the most remarkable of his paintings are The Visitation with St Nicholas and St Anthony Abbot (c. 1500, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), Venus, Mars and Amor (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), and Death of Procris (c. 1510, National Gallery, London).