Gentile da Fabriano - Gentile di Nicolò di Giovanni
Adoration of the Magi (1423) Gentile was born in or near Fabriano , in the Marche . His mother died some time before 1380, and his father, Niccolò di Giovanni Massi, retired to a monastery in the same year, where he died in 1385. Little is known of his formation: one of his first known works, a Madonna with Child (c. 1395–1400, now in Berlin) shows the influence of the northern Italian late-Gothic painting. By around 1405, Gentile da Fabriano was working in Venice . He painted a panel for the church of Santa Sofia, now lost; Jacopo Bellini worked perhaps in his workshop. Between 1408 and 1409, he painted a fresco (now lost) in the Doge's Palace depicting the naval battle between the Venetians and Otto III . In Venice he knew Pisanello and perhaps Michelino da Besozzo . From 1410–1412 is one of his first masterworks, the Valle Romita Polyptych (now at the Pinacotec...