LORENZO, MONACO, also called Don Lorenzo (c. 1370— c. 1425), Italian painter, was born at Siena. He took the vows of the Camaldolese order in 1391 and lived mostly at the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, in Florence. His name as a layman was Piero di Giovanni del Popolo di San Michele de Bisdomini and a painter of that name was entered in the books of the guild of St. Luke at Florence in 1396. Lorenzo was in some respects an innovator in Florence, for he combined the rhythmic, graceful flow of line and decorative feeling of the Sienese school with the Florentine traditions of the followers of Giotto; in his later work he appears to be influenced by the realistic tendency of the Early Renaissance. The Uffizi in Florence contains a signed work by the master, "Coronation of the Virgin" with many figures, painted in 1413 for his convent, and later removed to a branch establish ment near Certaldo. The National Gallery in London has another
smaller version of the same subject; one of his most graceful altarpieces is the "Annunciation" in the Bartolini chapel in the church of S. Trinita at Florence. In the same chapel are late frescoes of the "Life of the Virgin," recently rescued from under neath a coat of whitewash. Another late work of the master is the "Adoration of the Magi" in the Uffizi. The master's feeling for decorative composition, his expressive line, and his originality come out well in his small predella pieces, as in the three small fragments at the Florence academy, representing the "Nativity," the "Life of a Hermit" and a stormy seascape, and in the two remarkable illuminations in the Berlin museums of the "Journey of the Three Kings" and the "Visitation." See Oscar Siren, Don Lorenzo Monaco (Strasbourg, 1905).