GOZZOLI, BENOZZO (more properly BENOZZO DI LESS DI SANDRO, called "Gozzoli" by Vasari) (1420-1497), Italian painter, born in Florence 1420, in the early part of his career assisted Fra Angelico, whom he followed to Rome and worked with at Orvieto. In Rome he executed in Santa Maria in Aracoeli a fresco of "St. Anthony and Two Angels." In 1449 he left Angelico, and went to Montefalco, near Foligno in Umbria. In S. Fortunato, near Montefalco, he painted a "Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels" and three other works. One of these, the altarpiece, representing "St. Thomas receiving the Girdle of the Virgin," is now in the Vatican gallery, and shows the affinity of Gozzoli's early style to Angelico's. He next painted in the monastery of S. Francesco, Montefalco, filling the choir with a triple course of subjects from the life of the saint, with various accessories, including heads of Dante, Petrarch and Giotto. This work was completed in 1452, and is still marked by the style of Angelico, crossed here and there with a more distinctly Giottesque influence. In the same church, in the chapel of St. Jerome, is a fresco by Gozzoli of the Virgin and Saints, the Crucifixion and other sub jects. He remained at Montefalco (with an interval at Viterbo) probably till 1456, employing Mesastris as assistant. Thence he went to Perugia, and painted in a church a "Virgin and Saints," now in the local academy, and soon afterwards to his native Flor ence, the headquarters of art. By the end of 1459 he had nearly finished his important labour in the chapel of the Palazzo Riccardi, the "Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem," and, in the tribune of this chapel, a composition of "Angels in a Paradise." His picture in the National Gallery, London, a "Virgin and Child with Saints," 1461, belongs also to the period of his Florentine sojourn. In 1464 Gozzoli left Florence for S. Gimignano, where he executed some extensive works : in the church of S. Agostino, a composi tion of St. Sebastian protecting the city from the plague of this same year, 1464 ; over the entire choir of the church, a triple course of scenes from the legends of St. Augustine, from the time of his entering the school of Tagaste on to his burial, 17 chief subjects, with some accessories in the Pieve di S. Gimignano, the "Martyrdom of Sebastian," and other subjects, and some further works in the city and its vicinity. Here he received undoubted co-operation from Giusto d'Andrea. He stayed in this city till 1467, and from 1469 began, in the Campo Santo of Pisa, the vast series of mural paintings with which his name is specially identified. He died in Pistoia on Oct. 4, and was buried in San Domenico.
The art of Gozzoli is pre-eminently attractive by its sense of what is rich, winning, lively and abundant ; his colour is bright, vivacious and gay.
See G. Vasari, Del Vite de' piiu eccellenti pittori, Milanesi's edition, vol. iii. (Florence, 1878-82) ; J. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, History of Painting, vol. iii.; B. Berenson, Florentine Drawings (1903) ; Hugh Stokes, B. Gozzoli (1906).