Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi was born in 1449. Domenico started his artistic career working with his father, who was a goldsmith. He was later nicknamed Ghirlandaio, because of his father's skill at making garlands. In Lives, Renaissance biographer Giorgio Vasari wrote that Ghirlandaio was a student of painter Alesso Baldovinetti. Unlike most other Renaissance painters, Ghirlandaio did not experiment with oil painting, but preferred to work in large-scale fresco. The churches of Cercina and Ognissanti Italy …showed first 75 words of 650 total…

…showed last 75 words of 650 total…clothing that are depicted give the modern world its greatest view into the life of the late 15th century aristocracy. The Santa Maria Novella frescoes are over laden with detail and for this reason fail to impact the viewer with the intended intensity. Far more direct are his portraits of Giovanna Tornabuoni and an old man with his grandson. These two works, probably his finest, are quite simple and to the point. Ghirlandaio died in 1494.