Benozzo Gozzoli (Italian: Benozzo Gozzoli, 1420-1497) was a Florentine artist of the Renaissance. His real name was Benozzo di Lese di Sandro. The surname Gozzoli first appeared in the second edition of Vasari’s Lives of the Most Famous Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. He was born in Florence. From 1444, for three years, he assisted the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti in creating the reliefs of the eastern (so-called Paradise) doors of the Florence Baptistery. In 1447, he worked with Fra Angelico on the frescoes of the Chapel of Pope Nicholas V in the Vatican and the Chapel of San Brizio in the Orvieto Cathedral. Working with Fra Angelico had a great influence on all of Benozzo’s art, which even in the last years of the master’s life remained in the mainstream of the Gothic style, despite the fact that Renaissance tendencies were already prevalent in Florentine painting at that time.

Gozzoli is known primarily as a master of frescoes. The most famous of his completed cycles are the paintings dedicated to the life of St. Francis (Montefalco, 1450-1452).

From 1456 to 1459 he appears in various regions of central Italy. He paints an altar in Perugia in 1456. In 1458, he participates in decorating the coronation ceremony of Pius II. In 1459, the Medici summoned the artist to Florence to paint the walls of the church in their palace. The subject chosen for the painting was the journey of the Magi, in which the artist depicted members of the Medici family.

In 1461 Gozzoli painted the altarpiece of the Sacra Conversazione in Florence. He created a cycle of 17 scenes from the life of St. Augustine (San Gimignano, 1463–1465) in 1463. In 1464, a fresco of St. Sebastian. In 1471, the panel Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas (Louvre, Paris).

Between 1465 and 1485, he created a series of 25 frescoes on Old Testament subjects in the Camposanto, Pisa. In 1944, most of these frescoes were destroyed in a bombing and the ensuing fire. After the invasion of Italy, Charles VIII was forced to leave Pisa and return to Florence. In 1497, Gozzoli came to Pistoia, where his sons worked, probably for fresco painting.

Apart from his commissions for the Medici, Gozzoli’s work was mainly outside Florence. His compositions, overloaded with details and figures, executed in a manner strongly reminiscent of the works of the masters of the Trecento, could not compete with the works of the leading Florentine painters of his time, full of clarity and inner energy.

He died on October 4, 1497, probably from the plague. He was buried at the monastery of San Domenico.