1438-1494 Italian Melozzo da Forli Location Melozzo came, it is supposed, of a wealthy family named Ambrosi from Forl??. Nothing is known about his early years, and it is only a hypothesis that he formed at the Forlivese school of art, then ruled by Ansuino da Forl??, for they were both influenced by the Mantegna manner. It has been said that he became a journeyman and color-grinder to some of the best masters, in order to prosecute his studies; this lacks confirmation. His presence his first mentioned in his birthplace in 1460 and again in 1464. Around this period, together with Antoniazzo Romano, frescoed the Bessarione chapel in the basilica dei Santi Apostoli in Rome. Melozzo presumably moved to in Urbino between 1465 and 1475: here he met the highly theoretical and mathematical Piero della Francesca, who profoundly influenced the Melozzo style and use of perspective. He should have also studied the architectures by Bramante and other Flemish painters then working for the duke Federico da Montefeltro: perhaps Melozzo worked with Justus of Ghent and Pedro Berruguete to the decoration of the studiolo of the famous Ducal Palace of the city. In 1475 Melozzo transferred to Rome, though some authorities claim his presence in Rome ten (or five) years earlier to work in the Basilica di San Marco. In 1477 he finished his first major work in the new seat, a fresco now transferred to canvas and placed in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, representing the appointment of Bartolomeo Platina by Sixtus IV as librarian of the restored Vatican Library. In 1478 he was one of the original members of the academy of St Luke, founded by Sixtus IV to unite the main painters working in the city. About 1480 Melozzo was commissioned by Pietro Riario to paint the vault of the apse in the basilica dei Santi Apostoli in Rome, his subject being the Ascension. The figure of Christ is so boldly and effectively foreshortened that it seems to burst through the vaulting; this fresco was taken down in 1711, and the figure of Christ is now in the Quirinal Palace; while some of the other portions, almost Raphaelesque in merit, are in the sacristy of St Peter: a hall in the Vatican Museums is designed for angels and apostles by Melozzo taken down the same fresco. Another work of the Roman period is an Annunciation that can still be seen in the Pantheon. Melozzo last work in Rome is a chapel, now destroyed, in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. After the death of Sixtus IV in 1484 he moved from Rome to Loreto. Here he painted the fresco in the cupola of San Marco sacristy in the basilica della Santa Casa, commissioned by cardinal Girolamo Basso della Rovere. It is one of the first examples of a cupola decorated both with architectures and figures, with a profound influence from the Camera Picta by Mantegna. In 1489 Melozzo returned in Rome. In this second period he probably drew some cartoons for the mosaics of Jesus blessing in the St. Helen chapel of the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. Pope Sixtus IV appoints Bartolomeo Platina prefect of the Vatican Library, c. 1477 (fresco) (Vatican Museums)Melozzo also painted the cupola of the Capuchin church at Forl??, destroyed in 1651; and it has been said that he executed at Urbino some of the portraits of great men (Plato, Dante, Sixtus IV, etc.) which are now divided between the Barberini Palace and the Campana collection in Paris. In 1493 he worked to some ceilings of the Palazzo Comunale of Ancona, which have gone lost. Eventually Melozzo moved to Forl??, where, together with his pupil Marco Palmezzano, decorated the Feo Chapel in the church of San Biagio, which was destroyed during World War II. The Pinacoteca of Forl?? houses a fresco by Melozzo, termed the Pestapepe, or Pepper-grinder, originally painted as a grocer sign; it is an energetic specimen of rather coarse realism, now much damaged. It is the only non-religious subject by Melozzo.  Related Paintings of Melozzo da Forli :. | Sixtus IV,his Nephews and his Librarian Palatina | The Virgin Annunciate | Pope Sixtus IV appoints Bartolomeo Platina prefect of the Vatican Library | Pope Sixtus IV appoints Platina as Prefect of the Vatican Library (mk45) | One of Melozzo famous angels from the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli |
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Lucas Horenbout
Lucas Horenbout, often called Hornebolte in England, (Ghent c. 1490 to 1495 - London 1544) was a Flemish artist who moved to England in the mid-1520s and worked there as "King's Painter" and court miniaturist to King Henry VIII from 1525 until his death. He was trained in the final phase of Netherlandish illuminated manuscript painting, in which his father Gerard was an important figure, and was the founding painter of the long and distinct English tradition of portrait miniature painting. He has often been suggested as the Master of the Cast Shadow Workshop, who produced royal portraits on panel in the 1520s or 1530s. Horenbout trained in Ghent with his father, Gerard Horenbout, becoming a Master of the local Guild of Saint Luke in 1512. Gerard was an important Flemish manuscript illuminator in the dying days of that art-form, who had been court painter, from 1515 to about 1522, to Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands. Margaret was twice sister-in-law to Catherine of Aragon, still Henry's (first) Queen when the Horenbouts came to England. Gerard is sometimes identified with the "Master of James IV of Scotland", one of the many artistic personalities identified as a significant illuminator in the Ghent-Bruges school of the period, to whom no historical person can be attached. Horenbout came over to England at an unknown date with, or perhaps before, his sister Susanna and his father. It has been suggested that their move was in connection with an attempt by the King, or possibly Cardinal Wolsey, to revive English manuscript illumination by establishing a workshop in London, but this is controversial. His father Gerard is first recorded in England in 1528, and later returned to the Continent, probably after 1531; he had died in Ghent by 1540. Susanna, who was also an illuminator, is recorded in 1529 as married to a John Palmer and in England. Lucas is documented in England from September 1525, when he was first paid by the King as "pictor maker". By 1531 he was described as the "King's Painter", and this appointment was confirmed for life in June 1534, when he became a "denizen" - effectively a naturalised citizen. Horenbout was very well paid, at sixty-two pounds and ten shillings (but only thirty-three pounds and six shillings according to Richard Gay) per year, a "huge" sum according to Strong, and better than Holbein's thirty pounds a year in his period as Henry's court painter. He was granted a "tenement" in Charing Cross, and permitted to take on four foreign journeyman. Lucas was buried at Saint Martin in the Fields and left a wife and daughter, Margaret and Jacquemine. Margaret was paid sixty shillings three years later by Queen Catherine Parr for some paintings.
PULIGO, Domenico
Italian Painter, 1492-1527 He trained in Florence with Ridolfo Ghirlandaio and in the workshops of Antonio del Ceraiuolo ( fl 1st half 16th century) and Andrea del Sarto. What may be his earliest surviving work, the Virgin and Child with St John (c. 1513; Rome, Pal. Venezia), reflects the style of Ghirlandaio. Other early paintings, however, such as the Holy Family (Florence, Gal. Corsini), show the influence of Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto and are little affected by Ghirlandaio. The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John (c. 1522; Florence, Pitti) clearly reflects the examples of Fra Bartolommeo and Raphael, with the figures in the manner of Andrea del Sarto. The figure of the Christ Child may derive from Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks (c. 1507-8; Alnwick Castle, Northumb., on loan to London, N.G.). Over a dozen drawings have been attributed to Puligo, but none relates to his extant work or resembles his style of painting. Vasari described him as a particularly lazy artist, which may account for this scarcity of drawings and for the frequency of borrowed motifs and repeated compositions in his smaller religious paintings. Such borrowing often resulted in a lack of harmony in his compositions, as in the Pitti Virgin and Child. The influence of the more sculptural forms of Andrea del Sarto's work of the 1520s can be seen in the Mary Magdalene (c. 1525; Ottawa, N.G.).
Rutilio Manetti
Italian Baroque Era Painter , 1571 - 1639 was an Italian painter of late-Mannerism or proto-Baroque, active mainly in Siena. He was influenced and/or taught by the local artists Francesco Vanni and Ventura Salimbeni. He is known to have collaborated with Raffaele Vanni, the son of Francesco. He is known for the following works in Siena or nearby towns: Story of St Catherine and Pope Gregory (1597; Palazzo Pubblico), Baptism of Christ (1600; San Giovannino in Pantaneto); a fresco cycle of the Story of St Roch (1605-1610; San Rocco alla Lupa), Pope Alexander I freed from prison by an Angel from San Giovanni Battista in Sant'Ansano in Greti; a Temptation of Saint Anthony (1620, Sant'Agostino), a Death of Blessed Antonino Patrizi (Monticiano, 1616), a Blessed Domenico dal Pozzo at the table now in Certosa of Florence, a Birth of Virgin (1625, Church of Santa Maria dei Servi), and a painting (1628, Church of San Domenico). He painted a remarkable Allegory of the four seasons and a Parable of the blind men, now in private collections. He also contributed to the Casino Mediceo His style moved from one derived from Barocci to a more Caravaggesque manner after the first decade of the 1600s.