Neri di Bicci

Under Neri, the family's workshop was highly successful and productive. The details of its activity, including the names of the many pupils and assistants that spent time there, are recorded in the Ricordanze, a workshop diary (for 1453 to 1475) that is the most extensive surviving document relating to a 15th-century painter. Neri is known for his highly decorative compositions. Italian fresco painter, son of Bicci di Lorenzo.

Neri di Bicci

(b Florence, 1418; d Florence, 4 Jan 1492).

Italian painter, son of Bicci di lorenzo. He was the last artist member of the family, whose workshop can be traced back to his grandfather Lorenzo di bicci. Under Neri’s direction, the workshop was extremely successful and catered to a wide variety of patrons. The details of its activity, including the names of the many pupils and assistants that passed through it, are recorded between 1453 and 1475 in the workshop diary, the Ricordanze, the most extensive surviving document relating to a 15th-century painter.

1. Life and work.

(i) To 1452.

He was enrolled in 1434 in the Compagnia di S Luca and began to make his way as a painter in the thriving family workshop. Vasari described Neri as the second son of Lorenzo, to whom he attributed works now given to Neri’s father Bicci. The confusion was first pointed out by Domenico M. Manni in his edition (1768) of Baldinucci’s Notizie dei professori del disegno and then by Gaetano Milanesi in his commentary to Vasari’s Vite (1878). Milanesi’s analysis restored the real relationships between the three painters and reconstructed the pictorial production of Bicci di Lorenzo and his son Neri. In June 1438 Neri is named along with Bicci as a witness in a dispute between Bastiano di Giovanni, a gold-beater, and Domenico di Giovanni Lapi. On 15 December of the same year he delivered to his father a payment of 15 florins on account, for a panel painting commissioned by Donato Barbadori for the chapel of S Frediano in S Felìcita, Florence. In 1439–40 Neri worked with his father on the trompe-l’oeil funerary monument to Luigi Marsili (1342–94) frescoed in Florence Cathedral and in 1440 he painted and dated an Annunciation in S Angelo a Legnaia. In these early works his style was virtually indistinguishable from that of Bicci and the other painters of the workshop. Documents indicate that in 1444 he painted a triptych (untraced) depicting the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Six Saints for the chapel of S Giacomo in SS Annunziata, Florence (reconstructed by Zeri: central panel, sold before 1980, London, Colnaghi’s; side panels, Florence, Accad. and Oberlin Coll., OH, Allen Mem. A. Mus.). In these panels the style is more developed, showing similarities of detail with the painting of Fra Filippo Lippi and Paolo Schiavo.

In this period Neri not only began to achieve an autonomy of form in his painting, but also probably took over the management of the workshop. In April 1447 he painted a predella (untraced) for S Martino, Maiano, paid for on 27 August 1460. In 1452, the year of his father’s death, Neri dated a painting of the Virgin and Child with Four Saints (San Miniato, Mus. Dioc. A. Sacra), commissioned by Nicoluccio d’Antonio from Canneto in Valdelsa, near Empoli, for the church of S Giorgio there. In the same year Neri was entrusted with an important project for one of the most eminent Florentine families: a fresco cycle illustrating scenes from the Life of St Giovanni Gualberto, commissioned by Giovanni Spini and Salvestro Spini for the family chapel in Santa Trìnita. Only the Annunciation over the entrance arch survives.

(ii) After 1452.

From the Ricordanze the most important events of Neri’s life and his most important works can be reconstructed. The first information regarding the presence of a pupil in the workshop, Cosimo Rosselli, dates from 4 May 1453. The first work mentioned is a frescoed tabernacle at Ponte di Stagno near Florence depicting the Virgin and Child with Four Saints (Santa Maria a Castagnolo, nr Lastra a Signa) painted for Luca da San Colombano at Settimo on 15 June 1453. The most prestigious commission of this period was a tabernacle depicting Moses and the Four Evangelists (destr.) for the Sala dell’Udienza, in the Palazzo della Signoria. This tabernacle was to house a copy of Justinian’s Digest in Greek. The commission, from the Gonfaloniere Tommaso di Lorenzo Soderini, was begun on 15 August 1454. In another project for the Republic, commissioned on 24 January 1455, Neri collaborated with Vittorio di Lorenzo Ghiberti, Piero del Massaio and four other painters on the decoration of a model for a tapestry spalliera (untraced) for the Palazzo della Signoria.

The workshop’s activity in the Spini Chapel of Santa Trìnita, Florence, resumed with the execution of the altarpiece depicting the Assumption of the Virgin (begun 28 February 1455; Ottawa, N.G.). On 1 March 1455 Neri started work in the Vallombrosan monastery of Pancrazio on the fresco commissioned by the abbot Benedetto Toschi and now considered his masterpiece; the large lunette, depicting St Giovanni Gualberto Enthroned with Saints and Blessed Persons of his Order (Florence, Santa Trìnita), contains curious echoes of Piero della Francesca, Fra Filippo Lippi and Domenico Veneziano. On 1 March 1456 a new contract with Cosimo Rosselli was drawn up. On 5 March 1457 Michele Agnolo di Papi of Arezzo commissioned an altarpiece depicting the Madonna of Mercy for S Maria delle Grazie, Arezzo (Arezzo, Gal. & Mus. Med. & Mod.). In this painting Neri returned to traditional schemes. The frames and other carpentry work were provided for the painting by Giuliano da Maiano. On 5 June 1457 Neri settled a few financial matters with Stefano d’Antonio Vanni that went back to his father’s partnership with him (1426–34). On 8 November 1457 he was commissioned by Giovanni Spinellini, at the suggestion of the Florentine Cathedral authorities, to produce a Virgin and Saints for S Sisto, Viterbo (in situ). The finished altarpiece was delivered on 28 July 1459.

On 3 June 1458, commissioned by Antonio di Berto Cardini, Neri began to fresco a chapel in S Francesco, Pescia (in situ). He painted four saints on the wall, an epigraph and a wooden Crucifix carved by Giuliano da Maiano. This is considered one of the most interesting and noteworthy of the painter’s works, precisely because of its composite nature. On 19 October 1458 Giusto d’Andrea arrived in the workshop and remained intermittently until 6 February 1461. Francesco Botticini was taken on as a pupil on 22 October 1459 and left the workshop on 24 July 1460. The workload continued to increase and on 22 November 1458 Neri rented a second workshop at the Porta Rossa in the centre of Florence. A further important project was the fresco depicting scenes from the Passion (untraced) in the refectory of the Florentine monastery of S Onofrio, known as di Fuligno. These pictorial cycles were finished on 20 March 1462.

On 25 November 1459 Neri received the commission for an altarpiece depicting the Coronation of the Virgin with Eleven Saints (Florence, Accad.) for the church of the monastery of S Felice, Piacenza. This work is notable for its monumental composition and for the unusually large number of figures, though it shows very few changes of style. Against the old medieval background Neri placed modern elements, decorative and architectural, borrowed from Fra Filippo Lippi and Domenico Veneziano. Neri’s faces are typically immobile, harsh and wooden and the images of the Infant Christ are most often doll-like. Nonetheless, he never lacked commissions. On 6 June 1460 he began an altarpiece, commissioned by Bartolommeo Lenzi, for the church of the Innocenti, depicting the Coronation of the Virgin with Saints (Florence, Gal. Osp. Innocenti). In this panel the poses of the figures are freer and there are stylistic references to Andrea del Castagno. On 29 October 1460 Giovanni d’Antonio was taken on as a garzone (shop boy) in the workshop, where he remained until 1469. On 4 November 1460 Bernardo di Stefano Rosselli began collaborating with Neri.

The workshop’s activity continued at a lively rate. An important Assumption of the Virgin (untraced), dated 25 August 1462, was painted for the sacristy of the church of the Hermit, Camáldoli (nr Arezzo), commissioned by the general of the Camaldolensians, Mariotto Allegri. On 19 November Neri painted a wooden crucifix carved by Romualdo di Candeli for the church of S Cristoforo, Strada (in situ). On 8 October 1463 Benedetto di Domenico d’Andrea entered the workshop as a pupil, to remain until 1 January 1470. On 10 December 1463 Neri painted an altarpiece depicting the Virgin and Saints for Antonio, parish priest of San Miniato, to be sent to the parish church of San Verano, Pèccioli, near Pisa (in situ). On 9 January 1464 he began for Agnolo di Neri Vettori an Annunciation (Florence, Accad.) for the church of the monastery of the Càmpora (destr.). On 30 May 1464 he painted for Tanai de’ Nerli, a prominent Florentine citizen, an altarpiece depicting St Felicity and her Seven Sons (Florence, S Felìcita). A fresco with scenes from the Life of St Benedict (untraced), painted for the abbot Jacopo in the upper cloister of the Camaldolese Monastery in Florence, was begun on 10 April 1465.

Commissions from important Florentine families continued with, on 17 May 1465, the painting of stone coats of arms in the convent of S Maria del Carmine for Tommaso di Lorenzo Soderini. These are still in situ, although the colours have disappeared. On 19 June 1465 Neri and Baldovinetti gave an assessment of the panel depicting Dante Alighieri Holding a Volume of the ‘Divine Comedy’ painted by Domenico di Michelino for Florence Cathedral (in situ). On 5 November the contract of another pupil terminated: Giosuè di Santi (1427–84), who had apparently been working with Neri for some time, though the date of his arrival is not known. On 20 January 1466 Neri’s nephew Dionigi d’Andrea di Bernardo di Lottino (b 1455), the son of his wife Costanza’s brother, came to work in the shop. On 10 July Neri was commissioned by a devout lady who lived in the monastery at Candeli to paint a Coronation of the Virgin (Cintoia, near Florence, S Bartolo). This was a favourite subject, which he repeated over many years without noticeable variations in composition.

On 6 March 1467 Neri recorded the final episode of a complicated affair. An altarpiece (untraced) was valued for him by Strozzi and Baldovinetti. The panel, begun much earlier in 1438 by Bicci di Lorenzo for Bartolommeo Lapacci, formerly bishop of Cortona and prior of S Romolo, Florence, had been completed by Neri. When the prelate’s heirs had difficulty paying for the work, it was deposited with the painter Giovanni d’Antonio and valued again on 17 November by Strozzi and Domenico di Michelino. On 24 November Neri finally received payment from Amedeo, the new prior of S Romolo, and the panel was placed on the altar of the church.

On 7 May 1471 a monumental altarpiece was begun, another Coronation of the Virgin, the only one still preserved with its predella and the original frame made by Giuliano da Maiano, for the Camaldolese abbey of S Pietro a Ruoti, in Valdambra near Arezzo. It was finished on 14 October 1472 and placed on the altar on 25 October. On 31 October 1471, commissioned by Tommaso di Lorenzo Soderini, Neri repaired and repainted an earlier polyptych for S Maria del Carmine. Only one section of this remains, a St Margaret painted over a St Frediano (Cambridge, MA, Fogg). On 27 September 1474 Neri recorded the last surviving painting mentioned in the Ricordanze: an altarpiece depicting the Virgin and Child with Saints (Radda in Chianti, S Maria al Prato), painted for Mariotto Gondi and Niccolò di Goro of Radda. The carpentry and the frame (untraced) were executed by Zanobi di Domenico. Two other works (untraced) are mentioned in a contract dated 30 January 1475 with Ser Amedeo, procurator of the convent of S Niccolò di Cafaggio (destr.) in the former Via del Cocomero in Florence. One of these two panels was completed on 31 October, the other on 3 November 1475.

The diary ends on 24 April 1475, with a note on the purchase of a piece of cloth for a cloak for Neri’s son Bicci. But the latest date, written in the margin, is 18 February 1484, when the painter appointed the notary Ser Domenico Bonsi to act for him in the purchase of a house. An altarpiece with St Sebastian with SS Bartholomew and Nicholas (Volterra, Pin. Com.), commissioned by the contrada (district) of Prato Marzio, Volterra, and painted for the church of S Marco there, is dated 1478. Another panel depicting the Virgin and Child with Four Saints (Siena, Pin. N., formerly at Casole, Valdelsa) is dated 1482.

In 1488 Neri was active in the convent of S Maria, Monticelli, near Florence, where he received (1 April) 8 bushels of grain for painting done there; on 10 May he was paid for a frontal (untraced) depicting the Legend of St Francis and the Building of S Maria degli Angeli; on 1 November he painted a door panel for Suor Cecilia, the mother superior of the convent. The last information on Neri, then over 70 years old, is dated 14 May 1491 and concerns a valuation he carried out, together with Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippo di Giuliano ( fl 1480–91) and Baldovinetti, of the altarpiece painted by his old pupil Botticini for the Compagnia di S Andrea dalla Veste Bianca of the Collegiata of Empoli (in situ).

Though active throughout most of the 15th century, Neri remained faithful, at least in content, to the tradition established by his father and grandfather and with his death on 4 January 1492 came also the demise of a workshop that had stood out for over a century for the wealth of its production. He was buried in S Maria del Carmine. Of his four sons and two daughters, none were artists: Neri’s mercantile aspirations probably induced his sons to abandon the vocation of their father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

2. Style and patronage.

Neri’s work was decorative, two-dimensional and technically accomplished but entirely devoid of inspiration. The compositions, for example his countless Annunciations and Coronations, are inexpressive and repetitive, and the figure drawing is awkward. Until the 1450s Neri’s paintings had a rather unsophisticated but carefully worked freshness. A typical example is the Pisa Coronation (Pisa, Mus. N. S Matteo) painted between 1444 and 1452, which teems with figures and lively ornamental motifs. After the 1450s he adopted forms learnt from the artists associated with Renaissance painting, from Fra Filippo Lippi (but with results more obviously reminiscent of Paolo Schiavo) to Fra Angelico and Domenico Veneziano. A certain dryness of outline has been compared with the harsh style of Andrea del Castagno, but this is probably due rather to their shared taste for incisive drawing. Neri’s later works were, however, rather tired and repetitive.

Despite shortcomings, Neri’s paintings, with their simple and clearly identifiable style, lavishly adorned with gold, azurite and lakes, were keenly sought after throughout his career by the most varied clientele, representing every stratum of society from the ruling class of Florence to the artisans of the Chianti region; from noble families like the Spini, Soderini and Rucellai to small Florentine shopkeepers; from the abbots of powerful religious orders like the Vallombrosans of Santa Trìnita and S Pancrazio to ordinary parish priests from the surrounding countryside. This capacity to satisfy the demands and tastes of the most varied patrons is the most outstanding characteristic of Neri as an artist. With the preservation of his Ricordanze, it has made him one of the best-known painters of 15th-century Florence, notwithstanding his clearly rather modest artistic talents.

3. The ‘Ricordanze’.

On 10 March 1453 Neri began his Ricordanze (Florence, Uffizi, MS. 2), a workshop diary, which is the most extensive surviving original document to record the activity of a 15th-century painter. The 189 sheet volume is almost certainly the fourth such diary kept in the workshop (the MS. is marked with the letter D, and there is reference to a C volume for 1452). Until 24 April 1475 Neri recorded both workshop and family affairs: commissions for paintings, the names and often the profession and social status of patrons, descriptions and dimensions of works, techniques and colours used, the type of carpentry, the style of frames, the scenes depicted in predella panels, and prices. The whole provides an exhaustive account of the activity of a medieval painter’s workshop.

While commissions for altarpieces were the most prestigious, the workshop also produced or coloured small panels for private patrons. These were made of wood, gesso, stucco or even marble carved in relief, and some were the work of renowned artists such as Desiderio da Settignano or Luca della Robbia. The diary also mentions the gilding of wooden or metal articles such as chandeliers, torch holders and various items for religious use. They also painted fabrics, frontals and shop signs, relief sculpture in stone, terracotta and gesso, coats of arms, portrait busts and statues. They painted wooden statues carved by artists such as Giuliano da Maiano (who as a carpenter also provided the workshop, between 1455 and 1472, with picture frames) or by the Camaldolese monk Romualdo di Candeli, an obscure sculptor who produced wooden crucifixes of various sizes and other religious articles. Another area of activity was the restoration, adaptation and modernization of paintings from earlier periods.

The diary lists the workshop’s paint suppliers by name; usually they were apothecaries, with occasionally a religious organization such as the Compagnia degli Gesuati. Neri also recorded the names of painters and artists with whom he came into contact through his work. These included Fra Filippo Lippi, Desiderio da Settignano, Giuliano da Maiano, Benedetto da Maiano, Maso Finiguerra, Masaccio’s brother, known as Scheggia, Domenico di Michelino, Zanobi Strozzi and Alesso Baldovinetti.

The business was carried on in two different locations—the diary mentions one shop in Via S Salvadore in the Oltrarno district and another, more central, at the Porta Rossa, near Piazza della Signoria. The intense, varied work of the organization must have required a considerable number of assistants. 22 pupils were registered by Neri during the period of the Ricordanze, but only three of these are well known: Cosimo Rosselli, Giusto d’Andrea and Francesco Botticini. Others, who came and went rather quickly, are mentioned only by their baptismal names. Neri noted the dates when they entered the workshop, the time they remained there, the day they left and the wages they received. He also recorded family affairs: the birth of his children, marriages of relatives, illnesses and epidemics, rentals of houses and lands, harvests of crops and production of wine, oil and firewood. His business transactions, disputes with insolvent customers, investments and loans of money and goods are also documented in the Ricordanze, which thus provide a complete and detailed record of a full personal and professional life, diligently registered in the author’s laconic lines. An active, versatile personality is revealed; artistic life was only one aspect of Neri’s numerous, mainly commercial, interests.

Furthermore, from the minute detail of the painter’s day-to-day activity over more than 20 years, a picture emerges of the social environment in which a 16th century Florentine painter worked and the transformations in style and taste that took place in that century. Notwithstanding his failure to keep abreast of artistic developments, the large capacity and high technical standards of the workshop kept Neri’s paintings in demand both from the less cultivated classes and the influential ruling groups in the city.

Writings

Ricordanze (1453–75; Florence, Uffizi, MS. 2); ed. B. Santi (Pisa, 1976)

Bibliography

Early sources

G. Vasari: Vite (1550; rev. 2/1568); ed. G. Milanesi (1878–85), ii, pp. 58–60 [also contains G. Milanesi: ‘Commentario alla vita di Lorenzo Bicci’ (1878), pp. 63–8

F. Baldinucci: Notizie (1681–1728); ed. D. M. Manni (1768), iii, pp. 110–21

J. W. Gaye: Careggio (1839–40), ii, p. vi

General

Colnaghi; Thieme–Becker

A. Venturi: Storia (1901–40), i, pp. 431–2

R. van Marle: Italian Schools (1923–38), x, pp. 523–46

M. Wackernagel: Der Lebensraum des Künstlers in der florentinischen Renaissance (Leipzig, 1938)

A. Chastel: L’arte italiana, i (Florence, 1962), p. 341

B. Berenson: Florentine School (1963), i, pp. 152–8

P. Dal Poggeto: Arte in Valdelsa dal sec. XII al sec. XVII (Certaldo, 1963), pp. 54–5

A. Chastel: I centri del rinascimento: Arte italiana, 1460–1500 (Milan, 1965), p. 72

A. Thomas: The Painter’s Practice in Renaissance Tuscany (Cambridge, 1995)

Specialist studies

‘Ricordanze’

G. Poggi: ‘Le Ricordanze di Neri di Bicci (1453–1475)’, Il Vasari, i (1928), pp. 317–38

G. Poggi: ‘Le Ricordanze di Neri di Bicci (1453–1475)’, Il Vasari, iii (1930), pp. 133–53, 222–34

G. Poggi: ‘Le Ricordanze di Neri di Bicci (1453–1475)’, Il Vasari, iv (1931), pp. 189–202

B. Santi: ‘Dalle Ricordanze di Neri di Bicci’, An. Scu. Norm. Sup. Pisa, n. s. 2, iii/1 (1973), pp. 169–88

Specific works

G. Poggi: ‘Della tavola di Francesco di Giovanni Botticini per la Compagnia di S Andrea di Empoli’, Riv. A., iii (1905), pp. 258–64

G. Carocci: ‘Un dipinto di Neri di Bicci nella chiesa di S Verano a Péccioli (Pisa)’, Illus. Fiorentino, iii (1906), pp. 31–2

G. Carocci: ‘Un quadro di Neri di Bicci nella chiesa di S Lucia al Borghetto (Tavarnelle)’, Illus. Fiorentino, iii (1907), pp. 46–7

A. Del Vita: ‘La Pinacoteca d’Arezzo’, Rass. A., xv (1915), pp. 75–88 (87)

I. Vavasour Elder: ‘Alcuni dipinti e oggetti d’arte nei dintorni di Firenze’, Rass. A., xvi (1916), pp. 257–64 (259)

F. Tarani: La Badia di S Pancrazio a Firenze (Pescia, 1923), p. 54

W. R. V. : ‘The Three Archangels by Neri di Bicci’, Bull. Detroit Inst. A., viii (1926), pp. 13–16

L. Pescetti: ‘La Pinacoteca di Volterra’, Emporium, lxxi (1930), pp. 208–20 (219)

G. Gronau: ‘Das Erzengebild des Neri di Bicci aus der Kirche S Spirito: Kleine wissenschaftliche Beiträge’, Mitt. Ksthist. Inst. Florenz, iii (1931), pp. 430–34

P. Torriti: La Pinacoteca nazionale di Siena: I dipinti dal XII al XV secolo (Genoa, 1977), p. 418

E. Carli: La Pinacoteca di Volterra (Pisa, 1980), pp. 42–3

B. Santi: ‘Due dipinti recuperati di Neri di Bicci’, Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Roberto Salvini (Florence, 1984), pp. 329–34

A. Paolucci: La Pinacoteca di Volterra (Florence, 1989), pp. 131–2

L. Venturini: ‘Restauri quattrocenteschi: Neri di Bicci, Domenico Ghirlandaio’, Kermes, vii/19 (1994), pp. 28–34 [discussion of the Crucifixion with Saints for S Sisto, Viterbo]

A. Thomas: ‘Neri di Bicci’s Young St. John the Baptist Going into the Desert: A Predella Re-connected to its Panel’, Apollo, cxliii/411 (1996), pp. 3–7

A. Thomas: ‘A New Date for Neri di Bicci’s S Giovannino dei Cavalieri Coronation of the Virgin’, Burl. Mag., cxxxiv (1997), pp. 103–6

A. Thomas: ‘Neri di Bicci’s Assumption of the Virgin for S Trìnita, Florence’, Apollo, cxlvi (1997), pp. 42–51

Other

L. Manzoni: Statuti e matricole dell’arte dei pittori della città di Firenze, Perugia e Siena (Rome, 1904), p. 130

G. Poggi: ‘Neri di Bicci e Giuliano da Maiano’, Riv. A., iii (1905), pp. 128–9

A. Colasanti: ‘Opere d’arte ignote o poco note’, Boll. A., iv (1910), pp. 184–92 (188–9)

R. Longhi: ‘Ricerche su Giovanni di Francesco’, Pinacotheca, i (1928), pp. 34–48 (36., n. 1)

Catalogo della mostra del tesoro di Firenze sacra (Florence, 1933), pp. 73, 121

R. Graves Mather: ‘Documents Mostly New Relating to Florentine Painters and Sculptors of the Fifteenth Century’, A. Bull., xxx (1948), pp. 20–65 (43–44)

Mostra d’arte sacra della diocesi e della provincia dal sec. XI al XVIII (Arezzo, 1950)

R. Longhi: ‘Il Maestro di Pratovecchio’, Paragone, iii/35 (1952), pp. 10–37 (22, 35)

L. Bartolini Campetti: ‘Opere d’arte toscane ignote o poco note’, An. Scu. Norm. Sup. Pisa, n. s. 1, xxii (1954)

W. Cohn: ‘Notizie storiche intorno ad alcune tavole fiorentine del ’300 e del ’400’, Riv. A., xxxi (1956), pp. 41–72

A. M. Maetzke: Arte nell’Aretino: Recuperi e restauri dal 1968 al 1974 (Florence, 1974), pp. 92–4

A. M. Maetzke: Arte nell’Aretino: Dipinti e sculture restaurati dal XIII al XVIII secolo (Florence, 1979), pp. 48–9

B. Santi: Tesori d’arte antica a San Miniato (Genoa, 1979), pp. 79–83

C. Frosinini: ‘Il passaggio di gestione in una bottega fiorentina del primo ’400: Bicci di Lorenzo e Neri di Bicci’, Ant. Viva, xxvi/1 (1987), pp. 5–14

C. Frosinini: ‘Neri di Bicci’, La pittura in Italia nel quattrocento, ii (Milan, 1987), pp. 715–16

F. Petrucci: ‘La pittura a Firenze nel quattrocento’, La pittura in Italia nel quattrocento, i (Milan, 1987), p. 291

A. Thomas : The Painter’s Practice in Renaissance Tuscany (Cambridge, 1995)

A. Thomas : ‘Neri di Bicci’s Assumption of the Virgin for S Trinità, Florence’, Apollo, cxlvi (1997), pp. 42–51

R. Prieto Gilday : ‘The Women Patrons of Neri di Bicci’, Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy, ed. S. E. Reiss (Kirksville, 2001), pp. 51–75

M. Holmes : ‘Neri di Bicci and the Commodification of Artistic Values in Florentine Painting (1450–1500)’, The Art Market in Italy: 15th–17th Centuries, ed. M. Fantoni, L. C. Matthew and S. F. Matthews-Grieco (Ferrara, 2003), pp. 213–23

F. Poletti : ‘Biografia scritta di Neri di Bicci pittore: “visibile pregare”; Percorsi tra parola e immagine nelle opere di Neri di Bicci’, Letteratura & arte, i (2003), pp. 111–26

Renaissance Art in Focus: Neri di Bicci and Devotional Painting in Italy (exh. cat. by E. J. Darrow and N. Dorman; Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, 2004)

Bruno Santi

Grove Art online, accessed 1/20/2015