(Pratovecchio, 15 June 1397 – Florence, 10 December 1475)
Paolo di Dono (Paolo Uccello) was one of the protagonists of the Florentine artistic scene in the middle of the XV century.
Despite his artistic training being almost unknown, it is possible that he worked in a workshop as an apprentice to Gherardo Starnina.
Paolo Uccello, at only ten years old, was the busboy of the painter Lorenzo Ghiberti, as well as Donatello and Masolino of Panicale, and was working on the refinement of the northern door of the baptistery of Florence.
It is known that his nickname, Uccello, as he signs himself, derives from his ability to fill empty spaces with animals, mostly birds.
He was summoned in Venice in 1425 for the creation of a mosaic in the Saint Mark’s church, that was sadly lost.
There are no news about the work done in Florence from 1430 to 1436, when the Opera del Duomo entrusts him with the creation of a great equestrian mural destined to the left aisle.
For the Florence Cathedral also creates three cartons for the realization of the stained glass windows of the dome and the “sphere of hours”.
In the following years he works on various murals in the cloister of Saint Miniato a Monte, then in the Prato Cathedral: The Birth of the Virgin, The Presentation of Mary in the Temple and The Dispute of St. Stephen.
In 1448 he creates the murals of S. Maria Novella in Florence, representing The Flood and Noah Stories.
Among the last works of the painter there are Miracles of the Desecrated Host, commissioned to him by the Confraternity of Corpus Domini to decorate the Urbino’s church, Saint George and the Dragon (National Gallery, London), and the Hunt in the Forest (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum).
In 11 November 1475, Paolo Uccello dictates his will and dies a month later.
