Pisanello, Antonio
Pisano, Il
ca. 1395–1455
Italian artist

The painter and sculptor Pisanello (Antonio Pisano) is celebrated for his remarkable drawings and sculpted medals. He was the first Renaissance artist to create portrait medals. These minature bronze pieces contained the subject's face on one side and images highlighting the person's achievements on the reverse.

Early Life and Career. Born in Pisa, Pisanello trained in northern Italy and spent his early career there. He probably painted a fresco* in the Doge's Palace in Venice in the early 1400s. Around 1426 he produced a fresco for a tomb in the church of San Fermo Maggiore in Verona. This work shows the influence of Gentile da Fabriano, the most accomplished northern Italian painter of the time.

In the 1420s, Pisanello settled into a lifelong pattern of moving among various Italian courts, especially those of Ferrara and Mantua. His patrons* included the duke of Milan and Pope Eugenius IV, for whom he completed a cycle of paintings begun by Gentile da Fabriano. In 1448 Pisanello left northern Italy for Naples, where King Alfonso V appointed him a member of the royal household.

Medals and Drawings. Pisanello also visited Rome, where he studied the ancient ruins and developed an interest in classical* art. This inspired him to reinvent the ancient art form of portrait medals. He began with a medal of the Byzantine* emperor John VIII Palaeologus. During the 1440s, Pisanello created medals for most of the major political figures in northern Italy. Many distributed the small, portable portraits to their friends.

Few of Pisanello's medals and paintings have survived. However, he left a large collection of magnificent drawings, considered his most important legacy. Many of the drawings are careful studies of objects that Pisanello may have planned to incorporate into larger works. Others are more freely sketched, suggesting that the artist drew them directly from nature rather than copying images from other works, a common practice of the time.

Pisanello's drawings give an excellent idea of the range of tasks undertaken by a court artist's workshop in the early Renaissance. The subjects include military objects, such as helmets, armor, and cannons; personal items, such as rings, crowns, and tableware; animals, such as horses, dogs, falcons, monkeys, and camels; and portraits of his patrons and their elaborate costumes.

(See alsoArt in Italy; Sculpture. )

* fresco

mural painted on a plaster wall

* patron

supporter or financial sponsor of an artist or writer

* classical

in the tradition of ancient Greece and Rome

* Byzantine

referring to the Eastern Christian Empire based in Constantinople (a.d. 476–1453)