ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO
(b. 1423, Castagno, d. 1457, Firenze)

Madonna and Child with Saints

c. 1445
Fresco, 290 x 212 cm
Contini Bonacossi Collection, Florence

The Madonna and Child with Saints, that Andrea frescoed in the chapel in the castle of Trebbio (Val di Sieci), belonging to the Pazzi family, is influenced by Domenico Veneziano's peaceful and luminous painting. Despite the strong naturalism of the two saints on either side of the Madonna, the scene is characterized by a gentleness of forms, a delicacy of colour harmonies, and a majestic composition that Andrea had most probably borrowed from Veneziano's Carnesecchi Tabernacle and his frescoes in Sant'Egidio.