Giuliano Bugiardini (1475-1554) is an Italian Renaissance artist of the 16th century of the Florentine school, master of “Madonnas with Children and Saints”. At first he was a student of the sculptor Bertoldo, then studied with Domenico Ghirlandaio and Pietro di Cosimo. Giuliano Bugiardini was influenced by Fra Bartolomeo and Michelangelo. He worked in Florence, Rome (1508) and Bologna (between 1526 and 1530). He painted religious subjects and portraits. In 1503, Bugiardini joined the congregation of artists Compagnia di San Luca and worked together with Mariotto Albertinelli until 1509, when the latter left for the workshop of Fra Bartolomeo. According to Giorgio Vasari, Bugiardini assisted Michelangelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel in 1508. For the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Bugiardini painted the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine in the 1530s, based on Michelangelo’s designs.

Giuliano Bugiardini, also known as Giuliano di Piero di Simone Bugiardini, was born on January 29, 1475 in Florence. Giuliano Bugiardini worked mainly in Florence, and also in Bologna from 1526 to 1530. He signed his paintings Julianus Florentinus.

Giorgio Vasari wrote a biography of Bugiardini in his Lives, in which he claimed that the artist began his career under the guidance of the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni in the famous sculpture garden of Lorenzo de’ Medici the Magnificent near the monastery of San Marco. It was probably there that Bugiardini met the young Michelangelo, with whom he would remain friends throughout his life. In the early 1490s, both artists joined the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, where they learned the art of drawing and painting.

Bugiardini was criticized for his mediocrity and superficial imitation of Michelangelo, as being unable to understand the formal principles of the great masters: Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo, who greatly influenced his work. Michelangelo himself wrote that Bugiardini was “a good but simple man,” but Vasari claimed that Michelangelo was jealous of Bugiardini, who valued his modest achievements while never being satisfied with his own. Other artists also valued the coloristic qualities of Bugiardini’s paintings and the stark simplicity of many of his works. The Madonna and Child with Saints Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist (c. 1523) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is considered one of Bugiardini’s most successful creations, so much so that it was once thought to be the work of Fra Bartolomeo.

Finally, a few undated works by Giuliano Bugiardini and his followers.

However, according to Giorgio Vasari, “he died at the age of seventy-five and was buried in the church of San Marco in Florence in 1556. Once Giuliano told Bronzino that he had seen a very beautiful woman. And he praised her so much that Bronzino asked: “Do you know her?” “No,” he answered, “but she is beautiful: think of one of my paintings, and you will form an idea of her.”