Michele Tosini

Tosini began painting in the early 16th-century Florentine style of Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto (e.g. the Virgin of the Sacred Girdle, c. 1525; Florence, San Marco).

After 1556, Tosini served as an assistant to Giorgio Vasari in the decoration of the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.

Through Vasari's example, Tosini adopted a vocabulary derived from the work of Michelangelo and painted some of his best-known works in this manner (e.g. Night, c. 1560; Rome, Galleria Colonna, and Leda, c. 1560; Rome, Galleria Borghese).

He executed several important commissions late in his career: the fresco decoration of three city gates of Florence (1560s), the altar in the chapel at the Villa Caserotta (1561), near San Casciano Val di Pesa, and the paintings on the sides and back of the tabernacle of the high altar of Santa Maria della Quercia (1570), Viterbo.

According to Vasari, Tosini headed a large workshop that executed numerous altarpieces and paintings.

Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child with saints, Santa Maria Novella , Florence
Archangels Raphael, Michael and Gabriel, showing their attributes, including Tobias and his dog for Raphael
Lucretia , 1540s. Oil on panel, private collection.