PISANO, VITTORE (1397-1455), commonly called PISANELLO, Italian medallist and painter, was the son of a Pisan father called Bartolommeo and a Veronese mother. He was one of the leading artists of his age, and enjoyed great celebrity during his lifetime. Guarino, a distinguished humanist, sings his praises in lines such as these : "Great is the renown that comes to Verona from the excellence of your work," and "Our age has produced you to be numbered with the great sculptors and painters of antiquity." We know nothing concerning Pisanello's artistic education. Vasari, who likes to derive all great art from Florence, states that he studied under Andrea del Castagno in Florence. But he was more probably trained in Verona in the traditions of Altichiero. About 1422 he worked in conjunction with Gentile Fabriano in the great council hall of the doge's palace in Venice. During their stay in Venice the two artists exercised a great influence on the development of Venetian art. Pisanello was much favoured by the princes and potentates of Italy. There is evidence that he worked at various times at Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, Pavia, Naples, Rome, Venice and Verona. He was well received at the courts of his patrons ; he designed their costumes, the patterns of the material they used, the harness for their horses, besides painting their portraits and Madonna pictures.
Unfortunately, only very few of his paintings have survived. These are : the fresco of "The Annunciation" in S. Fermo at Verona and the fresco painted on the arch of the Pellegrini chapel in S. Anastasia, in the same city, representing "St. George
Mounting his Horse"; three easel pictures may be singled out as representative of the master; the "Miraculous Stag appear ing to St. Eustace" in the National Gallery, London; the portrait of a princess of the house of Este in the Louvre; and the portrait at the gallery in Bergamo of Lionello d'Este, who was one of the artist's chief patrons and admirers. These panels are care fully finished to the minutest detail, and are beautifully drawn. The Louvre possesses in the Vallardi book a number of delicate and spirited pen drawings by Pisanello. These detailed studies of nature, in which animals figure very largely, seem to have been his great delight and display the powers of an extraordinary draughtsman. But it is for his medals and plaques that Pisanello is best known. Although he was not, as was at one time asserted, the inventor of the medal, it was he who initiated this form of art as one of the most characteristic productions of the Renais sance. Pisanello's earliest medal was probably that of the Greek emperor John VII. Paleologos, dated about See Aloiss Heiss, Les Midailleurs de la Renaissance (1881) ; G. F. Hill, Pisanello (1905) ; J. de Foville, Pisanello et les Midailleurs Italiens (1908) ; G. Biadego, Pisanus Pictor (Venice, 1908) ; Les Dessins de Pisanello et de son Ecole conserves au Louvre (1911-20). (I. A. R.)