Neri di Bicci

Neri di Bicci (1419–1491) was an Italian painter active in his native Florence. A prolific painter of mainly religious themes, he studied under his father, Bicci di Lorenzo, who had in turn studied under his father, Lorenzo di Bicci. The three thus formed a lineage of great painters that began with Neri's grandfather.

Neri di Bicci's main works include a fresco of ''Saint John Gualbert Enthroned with Ten Saints'' (1455) for the church of San Pancrazio, Florence (now in the nearby church of Santa Trinita), an ''Annunciation'' (1464) for Santa Maria alla Campora (now in the Florentine Academy), two altarpieces (one dated 1452) in the Diocesan Museum of San Miniato, a ''Coronation of the Virgin'' (1472) on the high altar of the abbey church at San Pietro a Ruoti (Bucine), and the ''Madonna with Child with Four Female Saints'' (1474) on loan to the Sacred Art Museum in Casole d'Elsa from the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.

Neri is most famous for his ''Ricordanze,'' a series of journals he kept from 1453 until 1475 in which he chronicled the numerous types of commissions he accepted (altarpieces, small devotional panels, frescoes, shop signs, candlesticks, painted sculpture, etc.) and the rates of remuneration for his work, as well as his pupils, collaborators and patrons. The ''Ricordanze'' are the most extensive such document from the fifteenth century. They are today preserved in the library of the Uffizi Gallery. Provided by Wikipedia