Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi Ghirlandaio (1449-1494) was born in Florence and lived there most of his life, with the exception of living in Rome for a time. His father was a goldsmith, skilled in making garlands, and that is how Ghirlandaio received his name. He is supposed to have studied under Alesso Baldovinetti and often worked with his brothers Benedetto and Davide. In his later years one of his assistants was Michelangelo. He also had one son, Ridolfo, who became a noted painter.

Ghirlandaio's works portray a realism distinctive of the Florentine School, but also a naturalism distinctive of Flemish painting. As with most artists of the time, he was greatly influenced by the Antique world. Ghirlandaio was also excellent at incorporating portraits into religious works. This can be seen in the Calling of the First Apostles located in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Here, members of the Florentine colony are watching over this Biblical event. In Italy, Pope Sixtus IV had recently been accused, along with others, of conspiring to murder members of the Medici family; therefore, it has been said that portraying members of the Florentine colony in the Calling was politically motivated. An interesting fact is that Ghirlandaio never experimented with oil painting like many of his contemporaries. Instead he often used tempera, like on his altarpiece for the Sassetti Chapel at Santa Trinita in Florence. During his lifetime he was considered a dull painter compared to others like Botticelli and thus he never received a commission from the Medici family. In the last few years, however, people have begun to understand his style and are now hailing him as one of the great painters of the Renaissance.

Leave me to work while you make provision, because, now that I have begun to master my art, I feel sorry that I am not employed to paint the entire circuit of the walls of Florence.
-Domenico Ghirlandaio, remark to his brother David, quoted in Vasari, Lives of the Painters (1568)

So fond was he of work and so anxious to please that he directed his pupils to accept whatever commissions should be brought to his workshop, even though it were hoops for the women's baskets, declaring that if they would not paint them he would do it himself, and that no one should leave his shop dissatisfied.
-Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters (1568)

Calling of the First Apostles
1481
Cappella Sistina, Vatican

View of the Sassetti Chapel
c. 1485
Santa Trinità, Florence

Portrait of the Donor Francesco Sassetti
from the Sassetti Chapel
c. 1485
Santa Trinità, Florence

Adoration of the Magi
1488
Spedale degli Innocenti, Florence

Visitation
c. 1491
Musée du Louvre, Paris