Paolo di Dono, called Uccello 
c. 1397–1475

Dillian Gordon, 2003

Extracted from:
Dillian Gordon, The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume I (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2003).

Paolo Uccello, whose father came from Pratovecchio, was an assistant in Ghiberti’s workshop, probably 1412–16.¹ In 1414 he was inscribed with the Compagnia di San Luca, and in 1415 he matriculated with the Arte dei Medici e Speziali. Uccello made his first will in 1425 before leaving for Venice, where he worked as a mosaicist in San Marco. The discovery in San Martino, Bologna, in 1978–80 of a fresco fragment showing the Adoration of the Child and dated 1431 or 1437(?) suggests that he is identifiable with the Master of the Karlsruhe Adoration.

After his return from Venice by 31 January 1431, Uccello worked almost exclusively in Florence, with only a few exceptions. Frescoes in the chiostro verde of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, are of uncertain date. Frescoes in the chapel of the Assunta in the Duomo in Prato of c. 1435–6 are probably by him. He signed the fresco of Giovanni Acuto (Sir John Hawkwood) in Florence Duomo, commissioned in 1436. He was inscribed with the Compagnia di San Girolamo in 1437–8. The series with the Battle of San Romano (NG 583) was probably begun around 1438. In 1443–4 he frescoed the clockface in the Duomo and designed cartoons for three windows. From 1445 to 1446 he was in Padua. In 1465 and 1467–9 he was in Urbino (with his son Donato), where he painted an altarpiece for the Confraternity of Corpus Domini. He returned to Florence from Urbino at the end of October/beginning of November 1468. Around 1468 he painted Saint George and the Dragon (NG 6294). He also painted a number of other small‐scale paintings, including the Hunt in the Forest (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum). ^{3 2} His daughter Antonia (1456–1491), a Carmelite nun, and son Donato (b. 1451/2) were also painters. In August 1468 he recorded in the Catasto: ‘Truovomi vechio et senza inviamento, et no me posso esercitare et la dona inferma’ (‘I am old and without means of livelihood, and I can no longer work and my wife is ill’). ^{2 3}

Uccello made his second will on 11 November 1475 and died on 10 December 1475. He was buried in Santo Spirito.

Notes