Francesco del Cossa
1436–1477 · Duchy of Ferrara · Italian Renaissance, School of Ferrara
The story
Around 1470, in the duke's pleasure palace at Ferrara called Schifanoia, Francesco del Cossa finished his share of a huge fresco cycle of the year's months, with the court, the seasons, and the pagan gods ranged above them. Then he did something painters rarely dared. He wrote to his patron, Borso d'Este, the duke of Ferrara, complaining that he was paid by the square foot at the same flat rate as lesser hands when he had done the finest passages himself, and asking for more.
The duke refused. Del Cossa left Ferrara for good and moved to Bologna, the nearby city, where he spent his last years painting altarpieces for new patrons.
His stretch of the Schifanoia cycle, the months of March, April and May, is why the room still draws visitors, and it is one of the few securely documented fresco decorations of its age to survive. He died young, probably of plague, around 1477. The complaining letter, kept in the Ferrara archives, is the reason we still hear his own voice.
