MAINARDI, Bastiano

This tondo, depicting the adoration of the Christ Child by the Virgin and St Joseph, shows the influence of Andrea del Verrocchio. There exist several other versions of the composition by Mainardi.

It was supposedly Bastiano Mainardi, using the design of his brother-in-law, Domenico Ghirlandaio, who painted this fresco of Annunciation about 1482 in his native town of San Gimignano. This is largely a poor imitation of Leonardo’s famous Annunciation. Only the lectern, the details of which are reminiscent of Flemish still-lifes, shows originality.

Recent research gave the painting to Domenico Ghirlandaio, considering that Mainardi was a mere fourteen years old in 1482 when the painting was executed.

The detail shows the left side of the fresco depcting the Angel.

It was supposedly Bastiano Mainardi, using the design of his brother-in-law, Domenico Ghirlandaio, who painted this fresco of Annunciation about 1482 in his native town of San Gimignano. This is largely a poor imitation of Leonardo’s famous Annunciation. Only the lectern, the details of which are reminiscent of Flemish still-lifes, shows originality.

Recent research gave the painting to Domenico Ghirlandaio, considering that Mainardi was a mere fourteen years old in 1482 when the painting was executed.

The detail shows the right side of the fresco depcting the Virgin.

The detail shows the lectern, reminiscent of Flemish still-lifes.

This monumental wall painting is in the Cappella Baroncelli in Santa Croce, Florence. According to Vasari it is the work of Bastiano Mainardi, but it is based on preliminary studies and cartoons by Domenico Ghirlandaio.

This painting belongs to a type of circular images of the Madonna, emerged in Florence in the second third of the fifteenth century. Mainardi worked in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio and followed his masters style. The town, seen through the window on the left, resembles to Mainardi’s native San Gimignano with its tall towers.

The sitter of the painting is the wife of a Florentine banker. The coiffure of the woman is characteristic for the period: a wig (seuffia) on top of the head decorated with curls of different colour.

Although this portrait and its pendant representing the husband are catalogued in the Berlin museum under the name of Bastiano Mainardi, Domenico Ghirlandaio’s follower and posthumous brother-in-law, recent research attributes them to Davide Ghirlandaio.

Fra Domenico Strambi was a scholarly Augustinian monk, who was Benozzo Gozzoli’s patron when he painted the main choir chapel in Sant’Agostino in San Gimignano. In 1487, Bastiano Mainardi, a native of San Gimignano who was a pupil of Domenico Ghirlandaio, painted on the north wall of the church (to the left of the choir) a depiction of St Gemignanus seated on his bishop’s throne. Three local notables kneel before the city’s patron saint. Below this scene there is a painted monument, with an inscription explaining that Strambi is buried here. It shows the deceased laid out atop a sarcophagus in an imaginary niche.

This painting was probably drawn from a cartoon by Domenico Ghirlandaio. There is a larger version of this composition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.