(bapt Siena, 11 Aug 1410; d Siena, 6 June 1480). Italian painter, sculptor, goldsmith and architect.

He was formerly believed to have been born c. 1412 in the Tuscan town of Castiglione d’Orcia, but del Bravo has identified him with the Lorenzo di Pietro di Giovanni who was baptized in Siena in 1410. His name appears in a list of the members of the Siena painters’ guild in 1428. From the evidence of later works he is generally supposed to have been apprenticed to Sassetta, but his early work has not been identified. Between c. 1435 and 1439 he executed for Cardinal Branda Castiglione (1350–1443) a series of frescoes at Castiglione Olona, near Varese in Lombardy. He has been considered an assistant of MASOLINO DA PANICALE in this enterprise, but the scenes of the martyrdoms of SS Lawrence and Stephen in the apse of the Collegiata, below Masolino’s vault frescoes, show that Vecchietta’s closely packed compositional style was already fully formed. He also painted the frescoes (partially published by Bertelli) in the chapel of the Cardinal’s palace in the town, depicting the Evangelists (vault) and friezes of male and female saints (side walls). Although abraded and fragmentary, they nevertheless indicate the naturalistic effects of atmospheric lighting and foreshortening that, more than any other Sienese painter of his day, he had learnt from Masolino and the Florentine painters. In 1439, aided by Sano di Pietro, he painted the figures of a wooden Annunciation group (untraced) for the high altar of Siena Cathedral.

• Vecchietta
  • Giovanni di Pietro (ii)
  • Italy, §III, 3(ii)(b): Early Renaissance painting, c 1400–c 1500: Other centres
  • Siena, §II: Art life and organization
  • assistants
    • Pietro di Giovanni d’Ambrogio
  • attributions
    • Biccherna
    • Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists, §I: Master of the Piccolomini Madonna
  • collaboration
    • Benvenuto di Giovanni
    • Masolino, §3: Last years, c 1426 and after
  • patrons and collectors
    • Horne, Herbert
  • pupils
    • Andrea di Niccolò
    • Francesco di Giorgio Martini, §1(i): Buildings and projects
    • Francesco di Giorgio Martini, §2: Painting and drawing
    • Landi, Neroccio de’
  • works
    • Domenico di Bartolo
    • Hospital, §2: Decoration
    • Italy, §IV, 3(i)(b): Early Renaissance sculpture, c 1400–c 1480: Rome
    • Italy, §IV, 3(i)(a): Early Renaissance sculpture, c 1400–c 1480: Florence
    • Italy, §IV, 3(i)(c): Early Renaissance sculpture, c 1400–c 1480: Lucca, Siena & Bologna
    • Jacopo della Quercia, §1(iii): 1425–38: Reliefs for S Petronio, Bologna, and other late works
    • Piccolomini: (1) Pope Pius II
    • Siena, §III, 2: S Maria della Scala
    • Siena, §III, 3(ii)(c): Palazzo Pubblico decoration, 1355–1555
    • Statuette, §II, 1(i)(a): 15th century: Central Italy