active from 1427 -1450 · Siena and first Renaissance

However, Sienese, visionary landscapes and Franciscan stories make Stefano di Giovanni, known as Sassetta, one of the most poetic masters of the Quattrocento.

Stefano di Giovanni, known since the 18th century as Sassetta, was active in Siena from the 1420s and died in 1450. Probably trained in the Sienese tradition, he was registered with the painters' guild before 1428. His first order documented is the altarpiece of the Arte della Lana, a corporation of wool merchants, made between 1423 and 1426. His masterpiece is the vast two-sided altarpiece commissioned in 1437 for the church of San Francesco de Borgo San Sepolcro and delivered in 1444. The panels now scattered recounted the life of Saint Francis around a glorious central image. Ecstasy and Stigmatization show how Sassetta transforms the landscape into spiritual theater: rocks, trees and architecture not only describe a place, they make the irruption of the sacred sensitive. His art maintains the linear refinement, gold backgrounds and precious colors of Siena while integrating a new attention to depth, volume and emotion. In The Annunciation or The Virgin and Child with Angels, celestial space and bodily presence remain intimately linked. This synthesis, foreign to any simplistic opposition between Gothic and Renaissance, makes Sassetta the main renovator of Sienese painting of the 15th century. The "Stefano di Giovanni" selection notably compares The Annunciation and The Virgin and Child with angels. His reading favors light.

Sassetta makes a vision of the landscape: the road, the rock and the city open the sacred story towards a world that is both concrete and miraculous.