Giuliano Bugiardini
1475- 1554
Giuliano Bugiardini was an Italian painter and draughtsman of the late-Renaissance period known as Mannerism, active mainly in Florence.
Bugiardini was also known as Giuliano di Piero di Simone. He may have initially apprenticed in Florence, with a sculptor Bertoldo, but then apprenticed with the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. The influence of Ghirlandaio is apparent in his earliest known works, datable between c. 1495 and 1500, which include part of the altarpiece of the Nativity (Florence, Santa Croce) painted for the Castellani family. Apart from Ghirlandaio, his two most important early influences were Fra Bartolommeo and Mariotto Albertinelli.
In 1503, he joined the painter’s guild, the Compagnia di San Luca, and began an association with Mariotto Albertinelli that continued until 1509, when Albertinelli moved to the studio of Fra Bartolommeo.
Bugiardini’s “Virgin and Child” can be seen in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, show the influence of the balanced classical compositions executed by Raphael in Florence between 1504 and 1508.
Vasari mentioned Bugiardini assisted Michelangelo very briefly in 1508 with the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He also painted in Bologna in 1526-1530. The influence of Franciabigio is clear in such works as the Birth of John the Baptist in which nature is not idealized, as compared to contemporary works in Rome.
He painted a Rape of Diana. He painted a Martyrdom of St Catherine for Santa Maria Novella in Florence, based on Michelangelo’s sketches. He painted an altarpiece with Madonna with the Madgalen and St John the Baptist (c. 1540) now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
