Fabriano, GENTILE DA

Fabriano, GENTILE DA, an Italian painter, was born at Fabriano about 1348. His first teacher in art was, according to one account, Allegretto de Nuzio, according to another, Fra Angelico. His earliest work was perhaps the decoration of a chapel for Pandolfo Malatesta at Brescia. In 1423 he painted one of his best extant pictures, an 'Adoration of the Kings,' for the church of the Holy Trinity in Florence. To the same period belongs a Madonna with Saints (now in the Berlin Museum). A picture of the naval engagement between the fleet of Venice and that of the Emperor Barbarossa, which Fabriano painted for the Venetian senate, so pleased them that they conferred on him the dignity of a patrician and a pension of a ducat per diem for life. This picture perished in the fire which destroyed the ducal palace in 1574. Fabriano next worked at Orvieto, but was called thence by Pope Martin V., who employed him in adorning the church of St John Lateran with frescoes from the life of John the Baptist. He died at Rome about the year 1428. Fabriano's pictures indicate a cheerful and joyous nature. He had a childlike love of splendour and rich ornamentation, but his colouring is never extravagant or meretricious. See an article by W. F. Stillman in the Century for July 1889.