Documented in Venice from 1394 onwards, Nicolò di Pietro died before 1427 (he was still alive in 1419, when he is cited as a witness at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, but by 14 April 1427 he was already deceased). He is a forerunner of painters such as Michele Giambono and Jacobello del Fiore and was certainly a protagonist of Venetian painting in the years around the turn of the fifteenth century. The so-called Belgarzone Madonna (Venice, Accademia), his first known work, speaks of an artist who was trained during the 1380s in an individual style, distinct from the tradition of Lorenzo da Venezia and invigorated by awareness of art from the Venetian terraferma; furthermore, he appears to have been influenced by Tommaso da Modena and the Venetian sculptures of the Dalle Masegne circle, as evinced by the sumptuous thrones and numerous, diminutive and intense figures of angels. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Madonna in the Accademia (and, more generally, Nicolò’s oeuvre) seems to form the conclusion of Venetian Trecento painting and open it to Late Gothic tendencies. Indeed this master’s language contains a number of elements that lend it an original quality in the Adriatic sphere: his taste for the soft definition of flesh tones and wiry beards, visible in the first of his two paintings of the Coronation of the Virgin (Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini) and the beautiful Cross in Verrucchio, seems based on the recent Northern European painting; and his use of potent, gruff features in the Coronation in the Accademia dei Concordi in Rovigo (inv. 140, 145.5 x 79), together with certain iconographical choices (e.g. the Crucifixion on canvas in a Milanese private collection, inspired by the lebende Kreuz type), illustrate his link with the culture of Bohemia, and the North in general. The latter element reappears in the series of cartoons for the Stories of the Passion (Venice, Museum of Saint Mark’s) woven by Northern tapestry weavers for the great Basilica, which after complex attributional debate is now generally given to Nicolò.
In about 1408, our Venetian painter must have come into contact with Gentile da Fabriano, who was already active in Venice, since on 27 July of that year both artists are recorded as working for Francesco di Giovanni Amadi, a merchant and prestigious figure in Venetian society of the time. The effect of this important contact with Gentile can be seen in such works as the Saint Ursula and her Companions in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the four Stories of saint Benedict (now divided between the Uffizi in Florence and the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan), once part of a dossal. These works belong to the 1410s, when Pisanello appeared on the Venetian scene. An updated biography of Nicolò is provided by Mauro Minardi in Gentile da Fabriano e l’altro rinascimento, exhibition catalogue, Fabriano, 21 April-23 July 2006).