1474 -1515 · Florence and High Renaissance

Clear architecture, measured gestures and deep color make Mariotto Albertinelli an essential player in the Florentine revival at the beginning of the 16th century.

Mariotto Albertinelli was born in Florence in 1474 and died there in 1515. He trained in the studio of Cosimo Rosselli, where he met Baccio della Porta, future Fra Bartolomeo. The two young painters formed a lasting friendship and worked in association on several occasions. Albertinelli assimilated Florentine drawing, the balance of the masses and new research on perspective, while observing Perugino, Leonardo da Vinci and the transformations which led to the High Renaissance. When Fra Bartolomeo entered the Dominicans in 1500 and temporarily interrupted his activity, Albertinelli continued certain commissions from their joint workshop. The Visitation of 1503, painted for the Oratory of San Michele Vecchio and today at the Uffizi, is his masterpiece. Mary and Elizabeth kiss in the center of a perfectly readable stone arcade. The clear landscape, the flowery meadow, the simplicity of the clothes and the restraint of the faces give the meeting a solemnity without agitation. The predella unfolds the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Presentation in the Temple, linking the moment to the entire story of the Childhood of Christ. Albertinelli also leads a fruitful workshop with Giuliano Bugiardini and trains several painters. His reputation was sometimes absorbed by that of Fra Bartolomeo, but his art has luminous gravity, spatial clarity and measured emotion which are specific to it. The "Mariotto Albertinelli" selection notably compares La Visitation. His reading favors movement.

Albertinelli suspends the story in perfect clarity: under the arcade, the embrace becomes architecture, silence and shared emotion.