Piero di Cosimo (c. 1462-c. 1521)Piero di Cosimo was born in Florence. When he was around eighteen he worked as an apprentice and pupil at the studio of Cosimo Rosselli. Together with Rosselli, Piero travelled in 1481 to Rome to help finish his master's fresco for the Sistine Chapel. Towards the end of the 1480s Piero di Cosimo set up as an artist in his own right in Florence. Like his contemporary Leonardo da Vinci he painted panoramic landscapes as a backdrop to his figures. Piero di Cosimo lived a reclusive life, surviving on a diet of hard-boiled eggs that he cooked in batches of fifty - at least that is what the sixteenth-century artist-biographer Vasari purports. In later life the painter suffered from a partial paralysis and was no longer able to work. |
