Artist

Orcagna

Portrait of Orcagna
Portrait of Orcagna

Italian, 1315–1368

Orcagna was an Italian Italo Byzantine painter. 4 works are cataloged here, principally at Uffizi Gallery, most of them tempera paintings. Orcagna was born in Florence.

Andrea di Cione di Arcangelo (c. 1308 – 25 August 1368), better known as Orcagna, was an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect active in Florence. He worked as a consultant at the Florence Cathedral and supervised the construction of the façade at the Orvieto Cathedral. His monumental marble tabernacle (1352–1359), commissioned by the confraternity of Orsanmichele to protect the Maestà by Bernardo Daddi (1347) at Orsanmichele, was immediately praised.

The tabernacle, executed according to his design with the assistance of a team of selected sculptors and masons, included 117 figural sculptures or reliefs as part of a domed structure. His Strozzi Altarpiece (1354–1357) is noted as defining a new role for Christ as a source of Catholic doctrine and papal authority, as central figure enthroned actively handing out the (Dominican, or generally the Mendicant theology to Thomas Aquinas, and the keys of the church to St. Peter.

Works by Orcagna

Collections represented

Catalog records compiled from museum open-access collections; the artworks shown are in the public domain. Spotted an error in this record? Tell us.