Ghirlandaio (otherwise called Corradi, or Bigordi), Domenico del, an Italian painter, the master of Michel Angelo, born in Florence in 1451, died there in 1495. His father was a goldsmith, called Ghirlandaio from the silver ornaments in the shape of garlands which he manufactured; and the son, who was brought up to the same calling, inherited the name. Domenico early manifested an extraordinary aptitude for portraiture, and, after studying under Alessio Baldovinetti, went to Rome to assist in the decoration of the Sistine chapel. Of the pictures executed by him there, but one now exists, the Calling of St. Peter and St. Andrew." Upon returning to Florence he painted a chapel of the Vespucci family in the church of Ognissanti, in one of the compartments of which he introduced a portrait of the navigator, Amerigo Vespucci. Of greater excellence was his series of frescoes in the Sas-setti chapel in Santissima Trinita, representing the life of St. Francis. In these works, as in the frescoes in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella depicting the lives of John the Baptist and the Virgin, he introduced excellent portraits of many eminent Florentines of the period.

He painted many easel pictures in oil and distemper; but his frescoes, in the coloring of which, as well as in the mechanical and technical parts of his art, he excelled all previous painters, are incomparably his finest works. He is said to have created aerial perspective, and to have perfected the art of mosaic. Two brothers, Benedetto and Davide, and a son, Ridolfo, were also painters of some distinction.