Piero di Cosimo (1462-1521)

Florentine renaissance painter. Vasari portrays Piero as a highly eccentric character who lived on hard-boiled eggs, "which he cooked while he was boiling his glue, to save the firing". The paintings for which he is best known are appropriately idiosyncratic. He was also a painter of animals. His religious works are somewhat more conventional, although still distinctive. One of his outstanding religious works is the Immaculate Conception in the Uffizi, Florence. Piero also painted portraits, the finest of which is that of Simonetta Vespucci (see representative image), in which she is depicted as Cleopatra with the asp around her neck. - Malaspina Biography

Books from Alibris: Piero di Cosimo