Paolo Uccello

Timeline

1. c. 1397–1415Florence · FlorenceUccello was born in Prato Vecchio in Casentino and from about 1407 worked as an assistant on the cleaning and making of Ghiberti's second set of baptistery doors, possibly influenced by the International Gothic taste of Starnina. Around 1415 he joined the guild of physicians and apothecaries, beginning to engage with the spatial problems of the new Florentine art within the Gothic decorative tradition.
2. 1425–1431Venice · VeniceBetween 1425 and 1430 Uccello designed mosaics including St. Peter for the facade of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice (now lost). A document records him in Bologna in 1431. In 1432 the Opera del Duomo in Florence inquired about his reputation from its ambassador in Venice and promptly recalled him to paint for the cathedral.
3. 1432–1443Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore) · FlorenceIn 1436 he produced a green-earth monochrome fresco equestrian monument to the English mercenary Sir John Hawkwood (Giovanni Acuto), using different perspectives for the pedestal and the horse and rider to create the illusion of a bronze statue seen from below. In 1441–1443 he painted the roundels of four prophets on the entrance clock and supplied designs including the Resurrection and the Nativity for the cathedral dome's stained glass.
4. c. 1438–1475Florence · FlorenceUccello painted three panels commemorating the 1432 Battle of San Romano for the Bartolini Salimbeni family (now divided among the Uffizi, the Louvre, and the National Gallery in London), displaying perspectival problems solved one by one through broken lances, fallen figures, and patchwork color. Around 1447 he painted the Deluge in the Green Cloister of Santa Maria Novella; between 1465 and 1469 he completed the Communion of St. Jerome predella in Urbino. He died in Florence on December 10, 1475.