Piero del Pollaiuolo (UK:/ˌpɒlaɪˈwoʊloʊ/POL-eye-WOH-loh,[1]US:/ˌpoʊl-/POHL-,[2]Italian:[ˈpjɛːrodelpollaˈjwɔːlo]; also spelledPollaiolo;c. 1443 – by 1496), whose birth name wasPiero Benci, was anItalian Renaissance painter fromFlorence. His older brother, by about ten years, was the artistAntonio del Pollaiuolo and the two frequently collaborated. Their work shows both classical influences and an interest inhuman anatomy; according to Vasari, the brothers carried out dissections to improve their knowledge of the subject (although modern scholars tend to doubt this).[3]
Giorgio Vasari, who wrote several decades after both brothers were dead, includes a joint biography of Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo in hisLives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Vasari says that Antonio was especially highly regarded for hisdisegno or drawing,[4] and it may be that on shared works he did most of theunderdrawing, leaving Piero and their assistants to complete the painting. Vasari began the tradition of stressing the contribution of Antonio rather than Piero to the paintings, which went largely unchallenged until the 20th century, despite suspicions by art historians such as "Crowe and Cavalcaselle" in the late 19th century,[5] and in the 20thMartin Davies, later director of theNational Gallery.[6] In the 21st century a full and partly successful challenge has been mounted, and some attributions changed.
In recent years, there has been a trend among art historians to increase the credit Piero is given for the paintings, led by figures such as Aldo Galli, whoseAntonio and Piero Del Pollaiuolo: Silver and Gold, Painting and Bronze (2014) assigns the painting of many works to Piero that had long been given to Antonio, or both brothers. At least one of the brothers was influenced by the landscape style ofEarly Netherlandish painting, and the revisionist school thinks that this was Piero.
Contemporaries regarded Antonio as much the more significant talent; he was also a sculptor, whereas Piero seems only to have painted. They had separate workshops in a shared building. Disentangling their contributions, and those of their assistants, in paintings is difficult, as can be seen from Vasari onward.[7] Many works are given joint attributions, but others, especially smaller works, are given to a single brother. In some cases these have changed over the years, for example theApollo and Daphne in theNational Gallery in London was long attributed to Antonio, but by 2023 is described by the museum as by Piero.[8] Davies, in 1961, noted "The attribution to Antonio, claimed to be a better man than Piero, is little more than a recognition of its high quality".[9]
In the traditional distribution of authorship, Piero (and his workshop) was usually given the smalleraltarpieces and portraits, with mythological subjects, especially several withHercules, given to Antonio.[10] One well-known portrait in Berlin, theProfile Portrait of a Young Lady has been attributed to both brothers individually, as well as a string of other masters. Piero only signed and dated one painting, hisCoronation of the Virgin of 1483 inSant'Agostino, San Gimignano, while Antonio only signed his most important sculptures, his papal tombs, and his single engraving, theBattle of the Nude Men.[11]
A profile portrait of a richly dressed young woman, theMuseo Poldi Pezzoli'sPortrait of a Young Woman (c. 1470), is now also regarded by the museum (Aldo Galli's base) as by Piero, but in 2005 was "now generally assigned to Antonio", according to Alison Wright, author of the most recentmonograph of the brothers in English.[12] Similar portraits in Berlin, theUffizi in Florence, and theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York form a group of four that are typically given the same attribution, but the plainer and more forceful one in theIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum is separated by many (see below).[13]
A letter by Antonio in 1494 stated that the original, now lost, very large three paintings featuringHercules executed for thePalazzo Medici over thirty years before, were a work of both brothers, the only specific documentation tying Antonio to any work in painting.[14] The miniature versions of two of them that are now in theUffizi are one pair of traditional attributions to Antonio that Galli accepts.[15]
In the case of the largest surviving Pollaiuolo painting, theSaint Sebastian altarpiece now in London, differences in quality within the large painted area have always been noted by art historians, and traditionally those parts regarded as of top quality were attributed to Antonio, and those less to Piero or assistants.[16] Galli sees the whole piece as Piero's, with his team.[17]
The situation is not entirely clarified by Piero's documented, important and very public commission in 1479 for a set of full-length paintings of theSeven Virtues for thePalazzo della Signoria, the seat of government of theRepublic of Florence. They were to decorate the room of theTribunale della Mercanzia, the body overseeing all theGuilds of Florence. In the end, and after some public acrimony,Fortitude was painted byBotticelli and the other six by Piero; all seven are now in theUffizi (see below).[18] Given the nature of their relationship, some art historians have continued to suggest that Antonio helped Piero with aspects of the paintings, either in the design or the execution. Others are happy to use their style to identify similar works as by Piero's workshop.[19]
Aldo Galli's redistribution of the paintings does not depend so much on stylistic analysis as a reassessment of early (pre-Vasari) documentary records and comments by early writers such as the "Anonimo Gaddiano" probably from the 1530s and 1540s, so only shortly before Vasari.[20] But one characteristic and unusual feature of some paintings is that they are painted directly onto the wood panel, without the usual careful preparation of glue andgesso. The BostonLady and UffiziGaleazzo Maria Sforza are examples.[21] But this has also been described as a technique used by Antonio, and was used in theDavid in Berlin.[22]
A recently re-attributedPortrait of a Youth sold atSotheby's in 2021 for 4,564,200 GBP (6,261,764 USD), the first "fully attributed work" by Piero ever to come to auction.[23] It had previously been attributed toCosimo Rosselli among others, and with the portrait of Galeazzo Maria Sforza is Piero's only known portrait of a male. The teenage subject is given an almost frontal pose, unusual for the period. The reattribution was supported by Alison Wright and Aldo Galli, among others.[24]
He was born inFlorence. The brothers took their nickname from the trade of their father Jacopo, who sold poultry,pollaio meaning "hen coop" inItalian,[25] andpollaiuolo "poulterer".[26] This was a luxury trade at the time, and all of Jacopo's four sons were unlikely to find room for careers in it. According toBenedetto Dei, the contemporary "fanatical enumerator" of Florentine life, there were only 8 poultry suppliers in Florence in 1472, but 44goldsmith's workshops.[27]
Antonio was the eldest son; the two middle brothers respectively went into poultry (eventually inheriting that business) and goldsmithing. The youngest brother was Piero, and he and Antonio very frequently worked together, although their workshops were physically "separate but mutually accessible".[28]
Piero's training is uncertain. The Florentine painterAndrea del Castagno (d. 1457) has been considered as a possible master (sometimes for both brothers) on stylistic grounds and the authority of Vasari, but problems with the dating makes this questioned by many scholars.[29]
In a surviving letter of 1494 by Antonio, he says that he and a brother (presumed to be Piero) painted the three huge canvases of threeLabours of Hercules for the Medici Palace thirty-four years before; these were famous in their time, but are now lost.[30] Art historians think he may have misremembered the date by a year or two.[31]
According toFrancesco Albertini, writing in 1510, he painted a fresco ofSaint Christopher six metres high on the facade of San Miniato fra le Torri, near his house;[32] both church and fresco have now disappeared. Albertini gives to Piero alone theSaint Sebastian altarpiece now in London, theCardinal of Portugal's Altarpiece, and others.[33]
His only signed work, theCoronation of the Virgin in San Gimignano, is dated 1483. In about 1484, when he was around 41, he followed Antonio to Rome, and thereafter seems to have spent most of his time there until his death.[34] Not many works are usually allocated to this period.[35]
The last certain record of him is when he was paid for a now unidentified painting inPistoia Cathedral in November 1485. It is clear from Antonio's will of November 1496 that he was dead by then; otherwise the date and circumstances of his death are unknown. As his tomb is in Rome he is thought to have died there, as did Antonio. He had never married, but left an illegitimate daughter named Lisa, whose care was entrusted to Antonio; she later married, with Antonio giving 150 lire to herdowry.[36]
The characterisation of his style inevitably depends on which paintings are attributed to him and his workshop. More than a century ago,Wilhelm Bode complained ofMaud Cruttwell in her monograph on the brothers "it is hardly permissible for Miss Cruttwell to attribute whichever of the paintings pleases her best to Antonio and the rest to Piero".[37] This was really directed atBernard Berenson, who Bode saw as Cruttwell's mentor, who was especially critical of the few works and elements of works he allowed to Piero. He said in 1903 that theCoronation of the Virgin inSan Gimignano was "a picture of unalloyed mediocrity, with scarcely a touch of charm to repay the absence of life and vigour".[38]Frederick Hartt, an enthusiast for Antonio, remarked that "Piero... was a painter—a dull one, judging by his one signed work" (the San GimignanoCoronation).[39]
By contrast, Aldo Galli describes it as "a magnificent painting" that "presents... close stylistic and technical affinities with" other works he attributes to Piero, and others have attributed to Antonio: the sixVirtues, theCardinal of Portugal's altarpiece, and the LondonSaint Sebastian. According to Galli, "What they all have in common is a pronounced taste for precious effects, the highly efficacious imitation of jewels, brocades, velvets, with an illusionistic and tactile treatment based on the extensive and experimental use of oil-based binders (at the height of the reign of tempera in Florence), in open emulation of the Flemish masters. This refulgent pictorial treatment characterizes compositions that are highly studied, always somewhat artificial, populated with rather lanky and awkward figures, often seen with bottom-to-top perspective, with hands and feet that are nervously articulated, somewhat affected, emerging in their aristocratic pallor from silks and velvets studded with rubies and gilded trimmings".[40]
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