Domenico Ghirlandaio

Domenico Ghirlandaio (1448–1494), born Domenico Bigordi in Florence, was a leading painter of the Florentine Renaissance. His early fame came from the Santa Fina chapel frescoes at San Gimignano (1477–1478), and in 1481 Pope Sixtus IV summoned him to Rome to paint the Vocation of the Apostles in the new Sistine Chapel.

Back in Florence he completed the Sassetti Chapel cycle in Santa Trinita (1482–1485) and the Tornabuoni Chapel in Santa Maria Novella (1485–1490), crowded with portraits of Medici Florence. His large workshop trained Michelangelo, and he died of pestilential fever in January 1494.