He was acclaimed by poets such as Guarino da Verona and praised by humanists of his time, who compared him to such illustrious names as Cimabue, Phidias and Praxiteles.

Pisanello is known for his resplendent frescoes in large murals, elegant portraits, small easel pictures, and many brilliant drawings such as those in the Codex Vallardi (Louvre).

[1] He was employed by the Doge of Venice, the Pope in the Vatican and the courts of Verona, Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, Rimini, and by the King of Naples.

Pisanello had many of his works wrongly ascribed to other artists such as Piero della Francesca, Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci, to name a few.

Between 1415 and 1420, Pisanello was the assistant of the renowned painter and illuminator Gentile da Fabriano from whom he acquired his refined, delicate, detailed style.

Giorgio Vasari, an artist and biographer of the Italian Renaissance, states that Pisanello also worked in the workshop of Andrea del Castagno, author of the painted equestrian monument of Niccolò da Tolentino (1456) in the Cathedral in Florence.

Pisanello's love of drawing horses probably finds its origin in this relationship; but as there is so much unknown of his life, this attribution by Vasari is not reliable and may only be a legend.

Back in Mantua with the Gonzagas between 1424 and 1426, Pisanello painted one of his important surviving works: the fresco Annunciation in San Fermo, Verona.

When Gentile da Fabriano died in Rome between August and October 1427, his work at the Basilica of St. John Lateran was unfinished.

Pisanello's drawings are generally prized as jewels of the quattrocento, and provide evidence of the elegant garb of the time, including spectacular hats.

He compiled several books of drawings, detailed and accurate studies of fauna and flora drawn with poetic naturalism, and elegant costumes.

His fresco masterpiece from this period is Saint George and the Princess of Trebizond (c. 1433–1438) at the Pellegrini Chapel, church of Sant'Anastasia, Verona.

The powerful people of his time were depicted in profile on the front, as in Roman coins, while on the reverse there were allegorical scenes or highly evocative symbolic figures.

All this was often correlated by mottos, symbols and various attributes, according to a cultured, concise and never rhetorical celebratory program, which makes each specimen a true masterpiece.

[3] Pisanello's The Vision of Saint Eustace, now at the National Gallery in London, long ascribed to Albrecht Dürer because of its perfection of this very fine panel, shows most animals in profile or defined poses with miniature-like delicacy.

He also made some drawings with portraits of the emperor and his retinue (Louvre and Chicago), suggesting he had a commission for a painting or fresco for the Este residence.

The impressive fresco cycle Scenes of War and Chivalry in the Palazzo Ducale di Mantova, Mantua probably dates from 1447.