Bartolomeo Bulgarini was born into a noble family, several of whose members had served in the Council of Nine, Siena's central governing body.
11 Facts About Bartolomeo Bulgarini
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Bartolomeo Bulgarini is firmly in the Sienese school of painting, working in an Italo-Byzantine style on a gold ground.
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Bartolomeo Bulgarini was recognised in his lifetime as one of the most talented Sienese painters of the mid-14th century and is the only one of his generation to be mentioned by Giorgio Vasari.
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Bartolomeo Bulgarini's oeuvre has seen much controversy in its reconstructions, with works formerly attributed to Ugolino Lorenzetti, a composite name constructed in 1917 by Bernard Berenson, referencing the stylistic similarities to Ugolino Di Niero and Pietro Lorenzetti, which he attached to a small body of nine paintings believed to all be by the same unknown Sienese artist.
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The only known autographed work by Bartolomeo Bulgarini is the St Victor altarpiece in Siena Cathedral.
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Bartolomeo Bulgarini was almost exclusively a panel painter, which is rare among 14th century Sienese painters.
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The earliest mention of Bartolomeo Bulgarini is in 1338 for a payment made for painting the cover of the Biccherna, the book containing the financial transactions for the Commune starting in the thirteenth century until the fifteenth century.
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Bartolomeo Bulgarini entered the workshop of Pietro Lorenzetti as an apprentice or assistant.
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Bartolomeo Bulgarini's career, starting roughly in the 1330s, lasted into the 1370s.
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Bartolomeo Bulgarini's last documented work supposedly signed and dated 1373, which is lost, was a panel painting for the hospital of Santa Maria Della Scala in Siena although he was active up until his death in 1378.
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Works attributed to Bartolomeo Bulgarini are found at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Art Museum in Boston; the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge; the Stadel Art Museum in Frankfurt ; and the Wallraf Richartz Art Museum in Cologne.