Francesco del Cossa

Italian painter

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History

Francesco del Cossa (born 1436, Ferrara, Duchy of Ferrara—died 1478, Bologna, Emilia) was an early Renaissance painter of the Ferrarese school who, through his seven years’ residence in Bologna, exercised a profound influence on the course of Bolognese painting. Cossa’s style is characterized by stiff, heavy drapery folds and a sharply linear rendering of complex surfaces.

Cossa, Francesco del: The Crucifixion — Cossa, Francesco del: *The CrucifixionThe Crucifixion*, tempera on panel by Francesco del Cossa, 1473/74; in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

In his best-known work, the frescoes in the Schifanoia Palace at Ferrara (probably commissioned in 1469), Cossa developed a personal style of great coherence and vitality. Illustrating a humanist program, these frescoes represent in three tiers allegorical scenes, astrological symbols of the months, and scenes representing the daily life of Borso d’Este, the ruler of Ferrara. Cossa was solely responsible for the frescoes representing March, April, and May on the east wall.

A polyptych that Cossa painted for the Griffoni altar in S. Petronio at Bologna has been disassembled. The later panels (c. 1474), now in the Brera, Milan, are Cossa’s most successful panel paintings.