Andrea Vanucchi Del Sarto, commonly called Andrea del Sarto,. an Italian painter, born in Florence about 1488, died there in 1530. After passing some time in the workshop of a goldsmith, he took lessons in drawing from one Giovanni Barile, and subsequently studied under Pietro di Cosimo. But his real instructors were the cartoons and frescoes of Michel Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Masaccio, and Ghirlandaio. Having executed some oil and fresco paintings in conjunction with his friend Francesco Bigio in Florence, he painted in 1509, for the convent of the Servites, a series of frescoes from the life of St. Filippo Benizzi, and in 1514 the pictures of the "Epiphany" and the "Birth of the Virgin," which exhibit delicacy of sentiment and masterly execution, but lack dignity and grandeur of conception. His coloring is distinguished by sweetness and freshness of tone. His reliefs are singularly bold, and he was a thorough master of chiaroscuro. His illustrations of the life of St. John, which he began in 1514 for the Com-pagnia dello Scaho, are in chiaroscuro, and were not completed before 1526. For Francis I. of France he executed the Pietà, or "Dead Christ," with the Virgin, St. John, and Mary Magdalen. The king invited him to Paris, and the picture of "Charity," which he painted there, is now at the Louvre. In 1525 he painted in the cloisters of the Servites one of his most celebrated frescoes, the Madonna del Sacco, so called from the sack of grain on which St. Joseph leans, which was admirably engraved by Raphael Morghen as a companion to Raphael's "Transfiguration." His principal picture of 1528, the " Madonna with the Saints," in the Berlin museum, has been injured by a clumsy attempt to restore it; and his "Sacrifice of Abraham," painted in 1529, is at Dresden. He possessed also an extraordinary talent for copying the works of other masters, and his copy of Raphael's Leo X. in the museum of Naples is invariably taken for the original.

He was not always well paid for his pictures, but might have been prosperous, as he had many powerful and rich patrons, had he not yielded to the caprices of an extravagant wife. He returned from Paris with a considerable amount of money given him by the king to be invested on the royal account in rare works of art. Instead of appropriating this money to the prescribed use, Andrea squandered it in riotous living; and thenceforth, says Vasari, "from an eminent position he sank to the very lowest, merely working for a livelihood, and passing his time as best he could".