Lorenzo di Bicci
[3] The guild was named in honor of Luke the Evangelist, the patron saint of artists, whom John of Damascus had recognized as having painted the Virgin Mary's portrait.
Lorenzo's earliest work suggests the influence of a master whose identity is unknown but who was believed to be a member of the Guild of Saint Luke.
[4] Lorenzo's first public work was a panel depicting St. Martin Enthroned, painted for the Arte dei Vinattieri, the wine-merchants’ guild of Florence.
[5] The painting was mounted in the Florentine church of Orsanmichele on a pilaster assigned to the guild on October 4, 1380, and is now in the Depositi Galleria d'Arte in Florence.
As a group they were commissioned to value the statues of Faith and Hope by Giacomo di Pero created for the spandrels of the Loggia della Signoria in Florence.
Lorenzo was commissioned to apply the blue enamelled ground and to gild the statues, work that provided him a steady income.
Together with Spinello Aretino and Agnolo Gaddi, Lorenzo produced preliminary drawings for the statues of the four Apostles which would be executed in marble for the façade of the church.
According to Vasari, Lorenzo was then commissioned by the family of the Medici to paint a chapel in San Marco in Florence, a fresco in which he illustrated many stories of the Madonna and depicted the Virgin herself surrounded by many saints.
[4] In 1394 Lorenzo returned to the Loggia della Signoria where he painted and gilded the statue of Charity by Jacopo di Piero Guidi.
Three years later, in Florence, Lorenzo created three polylobed panels for the altar of the Madonna delle Grazie in the cathedral’s nave.
[9] From 1410 there is a record of him having been paid fourteen florins for a figure of St. Nicholas for the lunette of the portal of the Ospedale di San Matteo, Florence.
Some historians believe Lorenzo oversaw the construction of the Palazzo Capponi alle Rovinate, a late-Gothic style palace located on Via de’ Bardi in Florence, Italy.
Adjacent to this scene Lorenzo created a fresco of St. Christopher, and Vasari suggests that up until this point, no artist had successfully depicted a figure on such a large scale with accurate proportions.
The blue of her apparel is in the tradition of the Madonna and, in the case of Lorenzo's painting, the clothing is notable for its simplicity, with the absence of any elaborate drapery that is sometimes depicted.
[11] Some years later Lorenzo painted a Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, Catherine of Alexandria, Anthony Abbot, and St. Nicholas at the Virgin's feet.
Neri's Virgin and Child Enthroned with Two Angels and St. Ansanus, John the Baptist, St. Nicholas, St. Sebastian, Catherine of Alexandria, and Bartholomew currently resides at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
[10] Perhaps Lorenzo's best-known work is a devotional triptych painted in 1399 that now hangs in the Museo della Collegiata di Sant'Andrea in Empoli.
Lorenzo's artistic style is seen in the clean and simple compositional structure, the use of bright color, and the expressionless character of the figures' faces.
[15] Lorenzo served as one of his pupils and worked alongside Jacopo di Cione, Andrea's younger brother and an Italian Gothic period painter active in Florence.
