(b Florence, c. 1422; d Florence, 29 July 1457). Italian painter. According to the catasto (land registry declaration) return of his grandfather PESELLO, Francesco di Stefano was five years old in 1427. He was the son of the painter Stefano di Francesco (d 1427), who married Pesello’s eldest daughter. By the early 1440s, perhaps after initial training in his grandfather’s workshop on the Corso degli Adimari, Florence, Pesellino appears to have joined Fra Filippo Lippi’s workshop. He may have been the ‘Franciesco di Stefano pittore’ who enrolled in the Compagnia di S Luca in 1447. In August 1453 Pesellino went into partnership with Piero di Lorenzo di Pratese (d 1487) and Zanobi di Migliore, and numerous replicas of popular Virgin and Child compositions by Pesellino were probably produced in this joint workshop for sale on the open market.

• Pesellino
  • Domenico Veneziano, §1(i): Early works, to mid-1440s
  • attributions
    • Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists, §I: Paris Master
    • Strozzi, Zanobi
  • collaboration
    • Machiavelli, Zanobi
  • methods
    • Tempera, §1(ii): Later use, after c 1400
  • patrons and collectors
    • Gambier-Parry, Thomas
    • Graham, William
    • Holford, Robert Stayner
    • Loyd, Samuel Jones
    • Medici, de’: (4) Giovanni de’ Medici
  • teachers
    • Lippi: (1) Filippo Lippi, §3: Workshop organization
    • Pesello
  • works
    • Boccaccio, Giovanni
    • Cassone, §1(i): Painted: Florence
    • Diamante, Fra
    • Frame, §II, 3(iii): Italian Renaissance: Craftsmen and workshops
    • Lippi: (1) Filippo Lippi, §1(iii): Life and work, 1452–69
  • workshop
    • Italy, §III, 3(i)(d): Early Renaissance painting, c 1400–c 1500: Subject-matter & patronage