Altichiero: life and works

Altichiero da Verona (c. 1330 – c. 1390), also called Aldighieri da Zevio, was an Italian painter of the Gothic style.

A enthusiast of Giotto, Altichiero is attributed with founding the Veronese school. He worked in Verona and Padua—works by him survive in the church of Sant’Anastasia in Verona and in the basilica of Sant’Antonio and the Oratorio di San Giorgio in Padua (where the credit for the accomplish has been generally shared afterward Jacopo d’Avanzi, about whom Tiny is known).

Altichiero was probably born somewhere near Zevio. He became an important member of the della Scala’s household, and concerning 1364 painted a series of frescoes based on Flavius Josephus’s The Wars of the Jews at the della Scala palace of Sala del Podestà.

There are frescoes by him in the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua. In conjunction following D’Avanzo Veronese, he frescoed the chapel of St. James for which he was paid 792 ducats. The first seven frescoes on the cartoon of St. James the Elder were by Altichiero.

The last collection of Altichiero is a Paduan archival document of September 1384. At that time he was in Verona or nearly to go there. The Florentine art historian Giorgio Vasari is the source of the tradition that Altichiero returned to Verona after committed in Padua.