Florence Free Tour
Florence Free Tour

Domenico Ghirlandaio, whose sophisticated and refined artwork was admired by the wealthy Florentine bourgeoisie, was one of the main characters of Medici Florence. “Made by nature to be a painter,” as Giorgio Vasari puts it, Domenico Bigordi says, “called the garland” (nickname inherited from his father, a goldsmith who chiseled silver garlands as an ornament of girls). He passed away from the plague on January 11, 1494, at the age of 45. Born in 1449 as the eldest child of Tommaso di Currado and a woman named Antonia, he was early exposed to the world of art. In actuality, the father encouraged Domenico’s creative education as well as those of his two other children, Davide and Benedetto, who would go on to paint and work with the most well-known older brother.

Alessandra, who would have married Sebastiano Mainardi, a painter who worked with Domenico in his workshop for a while, was one of Tommaso’s two other children from his second wife.