Sarto, ANDREA DEL, a painter of Florence, where he was born in 1487 or 1486. The family name was Vannucchi; and Andrea was nicknamed Del Sarto ('the tailor's son') from his father's occupation. He studied under one or two Florentine painters, and gained greatly by copying from Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. In 1509–14 he was engaged by the Servites in Florence to paint for their church of the Annunciation a series of seven frescoes, of which the first four illustrated the life of St Philip Benizzi, the founder of the order; the two last, depicting the 'Nativity of the Virgin' and 'Journey of the Three Kings,' are esteemed the best in the series. During the next eleven years he painted a second series of frescoes, those illustrating the Life of John the Baptist and intended for the cloisters of the Recolets or Bare-footed Friars. But in 1518 he accepted the invitation of Francis I. of France and went to Paris, and was warmly received. In the following year he returned to Italy with a commission from the king to purchase works of art; but Andrea squandered the money entrusted to him, and so dared not return to France. The rest of his life was spent at Florence, where he died of the plague on 22d January 1531. The most celebrated of the single pictures painted by Andrea are the 'Madonna del Sacco,' for the Servites; the 'Last Supper,' for S. Salvi near Florence; the 'Madonna with the Harpies,' now in the Uffizi; the 'Fathers of the Church Disputing,' an altar-piece, likewise in the Uffizi; a Pietà, at Vienna; a copy of Raphael's portrait of Leo X., which deceived even Giulio Romano into believing it was the original, although he himself had had a hand in that original; and two fine Annunciations, in the Pitti Palace at Florence. Andrea was a rapid worker, had a quick, sure brush, excelled in accurate drawing, and displayed a refined feeling for harmonies of colour, but, though called 'the Faultless,' lacks the elevation and spiritual imagination of the greatest masters.
See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Painting in Italy; and Lives by Von Reumont (Leip. 1835), Miss H. Guinness (1899), and by Janitschek, in Dohme's Kunst und Künstler.