born June 26, 1865, Vilnius, Lithuania, Russian Empire
died Oct. 6, 1959, Settignano, Italy
Lithuanian-born U.S. art historian, critic, and connoisseur.
He grew up in Boston and attended Harvard University, but for most of his life he lived in Italy, where he built a reputation as an authority on Italian Renaissance painting. He was adviser to the art dealer Joseph Duveen (18691939) and to Isabella Stewart Gardner (18401924), founder of Boston's Gardner Museum. Berenson bequeathed his villa, I Tatti (near Florence), with its art collection and outstanding library, to Harvard to be administered as the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. His books include The Drawings of the Florentine Painters (1903, 1938, 1961) and Italian Painters of the Renaissance (1952).