Mariotto di Nardo
Italian, active 1394–1424
Mariotto di Nardo appears to have assumed the role of one of the principal masters of Florence following the death of Agnolo Gaddi in 1396,13 and to have retained that distinction even into the first decade of the fifteenth century. Among his assistants and followers may have numbered as important an artist as Lorenzo Ghiberti, who later claimed credit in his Commentari for Mariotto's designs for the stained-glass window of the Assumption in the central oculus of Florence Cathedral (1405). Although the frequency and prestige of his commissions in Florence continued unabated until about 1416, when he painted an altarpiece for the oratory of the Bigallo, Mariotto worked increasingly for provincial patrons in his later career and depended increasingly on the intervention of assistants in the execution of both his large- and small-scale works. Mariotto's last will and testament is dated 24 April 1424, and it may be presumed that he died shortly afterwards.