Jacopo da Sellaio

His father made saddles, and the trade gave the painter his name, since sellaio is Italian for saddler. Born in Florence around 1442 as Jacopo di Arcangelo, he trained in the busy workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi, a leading painter of the day, and there he met a fellow apprentice named Sandro Botticelli.

Botticelli's manner stayed with him for life. Sellaio worked in an eclectic style drawn from Botticelli and from Domenico Ghirlandaio, another Florentine master, and he ran a steady shop, sharing premises with other painters and taking a business partner he kept until he died in 1493.

He is remembered today mostly for the long painted panels that decorated the fronts of cassoni, the carved chests a Florentine bride brought to her marriage. On them he set out stories from mythology, Roman history and the Bible, small bright figures reading left to right like a frieze.