Francesco Granacci

Granacci was born in 1469 in Villamagna, and was trained in Florence in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, where he became lifelong friends with Michelangelo.

His earliest works, such as the Madonna and Child with Saints Michael and John the Baptist (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), Adoration of the Child (Honolulu Museum of Art) and his panel from the four histories of Saint John the Baptist (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) show the strong influence of Ghirlandaio as well as Filippino Lippi, who might have been Granacci's first master.

[1] In 1508 Granacci went to Rome, where he and other artists, including Agnolo di Domenico del Mazziere, were asked to help Michelangelo with the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

In 1519 he completed a large panel of the Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist, now at the Museum of Western and Eastern Art in Odessa.

For example, his Madonna and Child with Saints Sebastian and Francis at the Museo di Santa Verdiana in Castelfiorentino is more dynamic and dramatic than his earlier works.