Cecco Bravo

The Florentine painter Francesco Montelatici is remembered by his nickname, Cecco Bravo, something like 'wild Cecco' or 'tough Cecco', a tag that suited a restless, hot-tempered man as well as his loose, dreamlike handling of paint. He trained in the crowded Florence workshops of the early 1600s, among them that of Matteo Rosselli, and had a studio of his own by 1629.

For a long time he was half-forgotten, a footnote beside steadier Florentine masters. Modern scholars have pulled him back into view, finding in his smoky, unfinished-looking figures and swirling movement one of the most personal imaginations of 17th-century Florence.

In 1659 Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici recommended him for a court post far to the north, painting for the wife of the archduke who ruled the Tyrol. Cecco took it, moved to Innsbruck in the Alps, and died there two years later, in 1661.