Mariotto Albertinelli

Mariotto Albertinelli painted one of the calm masterpieces of the Florentine High Renaissance, his Visitation of 1503, two women meeting under a stone arch, now in the Uffizi, and then, according to his early biographer Vasari, got so sick of painting that he opened a tavern.

He had trained alongside a devout friend, Fra Bartolomeo, and for a while the two ran a joint workshop. Albertinelli had little patience for the endless criticism painters faced, and he told friends that the tavern trade was more honest work with fewer complaints. He did drift back to the easel, unable to leave it entirely. He died in Florence in 1515, barely past 40, reportedly worn out by hard living.