Gentile da Fabriano

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Adoration of the Magi (1423).

Gentile da Fabriano (born in or near Fabriano, Marche, c. 1370; probably died in 1427) was an Italian painter known for his participation in the International Gothic style. His mother died some time before 1380 and his father, Niccolò di Giovanni Massi, retired to a monastery in the same year, where he died in 1385. He worked in various places in central Italy, mostly in Tuscany. His best known works are his Adoration of the Magi (1423) and Flight into Egypt.

By 1408 Gentile da Fabriano was working in Venice. Between 1409 and 1414 he painted a fresco (now lost) in the Doge's Palace depicting the naval battle between the Venetians and Otto III, before moving west to Brescia. By the 1420s he was working in Florence, where he painted his famous altarpiece depicting the Adoration of the Magi (1423), now in the Uffizi and regarded as one of the masterpieces of the International Gothic style.

In 1425 he left Florence for Siena and Orvieto (where he painted his fresco of the Madonna and Child in the Cathedral) before arriving in Rome. He died in 1427 while working on frescoes (since destroyed) in the Basilica of St John Lateran. He is commonly said to have been buried in the church now called S. Francesca Romana in Florence, but his tomb vanished; there is evidence, however, that he may be buried in the church of S. Maria in Trastevere, in Rome the place of his death.

He left no works in the Marche, except possibly a Madonna and Child (of uncertain attribution) in the Duomo at Sant'Angelo in Vado, near Urbino. Also left one painting in Venice.