Giovanni di Francesco Toscani

1370 – 1430

Giovanni di Francesco Toscani (also Tossicani), Italian painter. He matriculated in the Florentine Compagnia di San Luca in 1424, but it seems that already in 1420 he was inscribed on the rolls of the company. The name Giovanni di Francesco was virtually unknown in art historical literature until 1917, when a scholar discovered documents from 1458 and 1459 linking Giovanni to payments for a fresco lunette. This lunette, in the Loggia degli Innocenti in Florence, remains his only documented painting. Both the nephew and cousin of painters, Giovanni di Francesco may have worked in his uncle's workshop. He was also probably a pupil of Paolo Uccello. From Uccello, Giovanni di Francesco developed a fascination with perspective and a taste for linear definition and intense facial expressions. In 1423 and 1424 Giovanni di Francesco received payments for decorating the Ardinghelli Chapel in Santa Trinit, Firenze. In 1442 he became a master in the Florentine guild. A few years later he worked for Filippo Lippi. The art of other Florentine painters of his day influenced Giovanni di Francesco, particularly Andrea del Castagno's emotional, linear style and Domenico Veneziano's explorations of the effects on colour of changes in light. In the catasto (land registry declaration) of 1427, Toscani described himself as a cassone painter ('cofanaio').

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