Pietro di Giovanni d'Ambrogio

When the famous preacher Bernardino of Siena died in 1444, his friars needed a likeness of him quickly, and they turned to Pietro di Giovanni d'Ambrogio. He painted the portrait from Bernardino's death mask, so the gaunt, hollow-cheeked face that later spread across Italy as the image of the saint traces back in part to this Sienese painter.

Pietro worked in Siena in the first half of the 15th century, in a city that held onto the shimmering gold-ground style of its great past while Florence, not far off, was busy inventing perspective. He is thought to have trained with Sassetta, the leading Sienese painter of the day, and his altarpieces of the 1430s and 1440s keep that older Sienese sweetness, the bright colour and the gold.

He also frescoed the great hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, across the square from the cathedral, though that work is lost. He died in 1449.