Francesco di Giorgio e di Lorenzo (1412–June 6, 1480), known as Vecchietta or Lorenzo di Pietro, was one of the outstanding Sienese artists of the 15th century. He was a painter, sculptor, goldsmith, architect, and military engineer. He was probably trained by Sassetta, but he also came under the influence of Florentine art and his large-scale paintings have a monumentality rare in Siena in the quattrocento. He is said to have been the pupil of Taddeo Bartoli and Giacomo della Quercia. In sculpture he was influenced largely by Donatello, with whom he came into personal contact.
Vecchieta was one of the most important painters of the later Sienese school. He painted a group of frescoes and a relic press in the Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala, four ceilings in the Baptistery of San Giovanni at Siena, an altarpiece, The Assumption of the Virgin, his masterpiece (cathedral, Pienza), a triptych, Madonna with Saints (Uffizi), St. Catherine and the Virgin of Mercy, fragments of frescoes (Palazzo Pubblico, Siena), and a Madonna (Siena). He also executed many sculptures, including The Risen Christ (Santa Maria della Scala, Siena) and a bronze relief, The Resurrection (Frick Coll., N.Y.).

Donatello's influence may also account for the strength and plasticity of Vecchietta's later paintings, such as the St Catherine in the Town Hall, Siena, and the Assumption in Pienza Cathedral, both dating from 1461/2. Another side to Vecchietta's talent is seen in his delightful illuminations in a manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy (British Library, London, c.1440).

A series of frescoes in the Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistery of S. Giovanni) were executed with the assistance of pupils, but much is identified as Vecchietta's own: the Evangelists, the Four Articles of the Creed, the Assumption and symbolical figures of Virtues. Vecchietta also painted two scenes on the wall of the apse: Flagellation and Road to Calvary.
The marble high altar of the presbytery was built in 1532 by Baldassarre Peruzzi. The enormous bronze ciborium is the work of Vecchietta (1467-1472, originally commissioned for the church of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, across the square, and brought to the cathedral in 1506).

Outside Siena the artist's chief painting, an Assumption, of (1451), is in the church at Pienza. In Firenze a Madonna panel and the bronze tomb statute of Marianus Soccinus the Elder (removed from S. Domenico, Siena), a noted Sienese jurisconsult, are in the Uffizi.

Vecchietta was born in Castiglione d'Orcia, and lived in Siena. Much of his work may be found there, particularly at the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, lending him yet another name: pittor dello spedale (or 'painter of the hospital').
For the Pellegrinaio (Pilgrim Hall) at the Hospital complex, Vecchietta painted a series of frescoes, along with Domenico di Bartolo and Priamo della Quercia, including The Founding of the Spedale and The Vision of Santa Sorore, depicting a dream of the mother of the cobbler Sorore, the mythical founder of the Hospital.

Later, around 1444, he created the Cappella del Sacro Chiodo, also known as the Old Sacristy, decorated with his own work. The frescoes included Annunciation, Nativity, and Last Judgment scenes, and an Allegory of the Ladder depicting children climbing to heaven. For the high altar of the Church of the Santissima Annunziata, within the Hospital complex, he created a bronze figure of the Risen Christ (signed and dated 1476), which shows the influence of Donatello.
"Vecchietta's Risen Christ combines the intensity of feeling associated with medieval German sculpture with that tactile physical description that is the hallmark of Renaissance art: It is unique and -- to my mind at least -- one of the greatest works of Western sculpture.[0]