Franciabigio

In 1513 Franciabigio was finishing a fresco of the Marriage of the Virgin in the entrance cloister of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence, working alongside Andrea del Sarto, the leading painter of the city at the time. The friars grew impatient and pulled back the screen before he was done. Furious that his work had been shown unfinished, he seized a mason's hammer and struck at the head of the Virgin and a few other faces. He never repaired the damage, and the marks are still there.

Born Francesco di Cristofano, he spent his career close to del Sarto, with whom he shared a workshop and several commissions. He was prized above all as a fresco painter and as a portraitist with a cool, watchful eye. In 1521 he joined del Sarto and the young Pontormo, another Florentine, in decorating the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano, painting the Triumph of Cicero for the great hall.

His portraits are where he is easiest to meet now, quiet half-length figures set against plain grounds, sometimes marked with a date or a motto. He died in Florence in 1525, in his early forties.