Piero di Cosimo

Most of what colours our picture of Piero di Cosimo comes from Vasari, who painted him as a glorious eccentric. He is said to have lived on hard-boiled eggs, cooking them by the dozen while he boiled glue so as not to waste the fire, to have let his Florence garden run wild, and to have been terrified of thunderstorms.

Eccentric or not, the paintings are strange in the best way. He loved the deep mythological past, and painted primeval scenes of early humans, forest fires, and hunts, half-animal creatures wandering a young world. His mythologies of Venus, Mars, and Cupid, or the death of a nymph, mix sweetness with something wistful and odd.

He trained in the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli, took his master's name as his own, and worked into the era of Leonardo and the young Michelangelo, whose new grandeur left his fantastical manner looking old-fashioned. He died in Florence in 1522, and Vasari reports he was found dead at the foot of his stairs.