Domenico Puligo

[2] His most renowned piece is possibly the large scale Vision of Saint Bernard altarpiece, now located in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore.

In the early 15th century, the Ubaldini family moved to the village of Ponte a Rifredi on the edge of Florence from their native area.

Provided by his father to the Estimo del Contado in Florence, Bartolomeo stated that his son was twelve years old, which allowed it to be determined that Puligo was born in 1492.

[7] Puligo was one of the only two apprentices, the other being Antonio del Ceraiuolo, that continued to work with Ghirlandaio for many years, even after they had finished their apprenticeship.

[8] According to Vasari, Puligo and Ceraiuolo had received invitations to work in Span and Hungary, but were not enticed even by the guarantee of money and rejected the offers to remain in their own country, where there was still much to be done.

[8] Rustici and Puligo were two of the twelve men that belonged to the Compagnia di Paiuolo (Company of the Cauldron),[9] which often occupied the Sapienza.

[6] Due to the lack of information and documentation on Puligo's life and works, it is difficult to determine the chronology and background of his pieces.

[6] Even though Vasari does provide crucial information on his undocumented works, he only mentions pieces from what he considers to be the mature stage of Puligo's artistic growth.

[8] In describing Puligo's artistic style, Vasari states that 'He, considering that his method of painting with softness, without overloading his works with colour or making them hard, but causing the distances to recede little by little as though veiled with a kind of mist, gave his pictures both relief and grace, and that although the outlines of the figures he made were lost in such a way that his errors were concealed and hidden from view in the dark grounds into which the figures merged, nevertheless his coloring and the beautiful expressions of his heads made his works pleasing, always kept to the same method of working and to the same manner, which caused him to be held in esteem as long as he lived.

'[8] Puligo's Vision is widely regarded as the piece that epitomizes his most classical phase and was praised by Vasari to be the finest of his works.

[6] Despite the difference in the settings of the two painting, it is apparent that the way in which Puligo has arranged the poses of the figures completely duplicates those within Perugino's piece.

[6] The gestural and visual exchange taking place between the Virgin and St. Bernard occupying each side of the piece, allows the painting to be evenly weighted.

[6] In the painting, a Madonna holds the Infant Christ surrounded by six saints: John and Baptist, Paul, Peter, Matthew, Bernard and Catherine of Alexandria.

[6] Puligo's skill with colour has again been commended in this painting: 'Upon seeing the Holy Family one is immediately struck by the bright vermillion color of the virgin's dress.

This red is brought up to a light pink and is set against broad areas of gray hues forming in the background, the head of Joseph, and the shadows of the flesh.

[6] This altarpiece at the Collegiata di Santa Maria delle Grazie in Anghiari was composed at the very end of Puligo's career, after the tabernacle of St. Catherine and St. Peter Marty of 1526.

[6] Cited last by Vasari in his list of Puligo's works, this painting consists of a scene whereby Christ is being lowered from a centrally placed cross to a young man by three other men.

[6] As he progresses through the periods, he gains more expertise in his drawing skills, increasing the volume of figures and attending to physical details with more care.

[6] In what is considered as his mature period, Puligo's portraits often represented the figures in three-quarter length with great breadth, and sometimes in elongated form.