Morto da Feltre

Last updated
Morto da Feltre. Le Vite - Morto da Feltre.jpg
Morto da Feltre.
Enthroned Madonna and Saints Luzzi Madonna in trono.jpg
Enthroned Madonna and Saints

Morto da Feltre was an Italian painter of the Venetian school who worked at the close of the 15th century and beginning of the 16th.

Contents

Biography

His real name appears to have been Pietro Luzzo, Pietro Luci [1] or Lorenzo Luzzo; he is also known by the name Zarato or Zarotto, either from the place of his death or because his father, a surgeon, was in Zara during the son's childhood: whether he was termed "Morto" (dead) from his joyless temperament is a disputed point.

Virgin and Child, Civic Museum of Feltre Morto da Feltre Virgen con nino Museo Civici di Feltre.jpg
Virgin and Child, Civic Museum of Feltre

Born in Feltre (province of Belluno), he may probably have studied painting first in Venice and surroundings, initially an assistant of Pinturicchio. It is claimed by Vasari that at an early age he went to Rome, and investigated the ancient, especially the subterranean remains, and thence to Pozzuoli, where he painted from the decorations of antique crypts or grotte. The style of fanciful arabesque which he formed for himself from these studies gained the name of "grottesche", whence comes the term grotesque; not, indeed, that Morto was the first painter of arabesque in the Italian Renaissance, for art of this kind had, been developed, both in painting and in sculpture, towards 1480, but he may have powerfully aided its diffusion southwards.

His works were received with much favor in Rome. He afterwards went to Florence, and painted some fine grotesques in the Palazzo Pubblico and trained Andrea di Cosimo. Returning to Venice towards 1505, he assisted Giorgione in painting the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, and seems to have remained with him till 1510. It may have been in 1515 that Morto returned to his native Feltre, then in a very ruinous condition from the ravages of war in 1509. There he executed various works, including some frescoes, still partly extant, and considered to be almost worthy of the hand of Raphael, in the loggia beside the church of Santo Stefano. He may have met Giovanni da Udine.

Towards the age of forty-five, Morto, unquiet and dissatisfied, abandoned painting and took to soldiering in the service of the Venetian republic. He was made captain of a troop of two hundred men; and fighting valorously, he is said to have died at Zara in Dalmatia, in 1519. This story, and especially the date of it, are questionable: there is some reason to think that Morto was painting as late as 1522. One of his pictures is in the Berlin museum, an allegorical subject of Peace and War. Andrea Feltrini was his pupil and assistant as a decorative painter.

He is cited in Giorgio Vasari's Vite or biographies of the artists.

Notes

  1. Stefano Ticozzi Storia dei letterati e degli artisti del Dipartimento della Piave p. XIII. Belluno, 1813

Sources

Related Research Articles

Giorgio Vasari Italian painter, architect, writer, and historian (1511–1574)

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, best known for his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing, and the basis for biographies of several Renaissance artists, including Leonardo da Vinci. Vasari designed the Tomb of Michelangelo in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence that was completed in 1578. Based on Vasari's text in print about Giotto's new manner of painting as a rinascita (rebirth), author Jules Michelet in his Histoire de France (1835) suggested adoption of Vasari's concept, using the term Renaissance to distinguish the cultural change. The term was adopted thereafter in historiography and still is in use today.

Santissima Annunziata, Florence

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata is a Renaissance-style, Catholic minor basilica in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy. This is considered the mother church of the Servite Order. It is located at the northeastern side of the Piazza Santissima Annunziata near the city center.

Paolo Farinati

Paolo Farinati was an Italian painter of the Mannerist style, active in mainly in his native Verona, but also in Mantua and Venice.

Feltre Comune in Veneto, Italy

Feltre is a town and comune of the province of Belluno in Veneto, northern Italy. A hill town in the southern reaches of the province, it is located on the Stizzon River, about 4 kilometres from its junction with the Piave, and 20 km (12 mi) southwest from Belluno. The Dolomites loom to the north of the town.

Belluno Comune in Veneto, Italy

Belluno, is a town and province in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Located about 100 kilometres north of Venice, Belluno is the capital of the province of Belluno and the most important city in the Eastern Dolomites region. With its roughly 36,000 inhabitants, it is the largest populated area of Valbelluna. It is one of the 15 municipalities of the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park.

Barbaro family Patrician family of Venice

The Barbaro family was a patrician family of Venice. They were wealthy and influential and owned large estates in the Veneto above Treviso. Various members were noted as church leaders, diplomats, patrons of the arts, military commanders, philosophers, scholars, and scientists.

Giovanni Balducci, called Il Cosci after his maternal uncle, was an Italian mannerist painter.

Jacopo da Empoli Italian painter (1551–1640)

Jacopo da Empoli was an Italian Florentine Reformist painter.

Giovanni Battista Naldini

Giovanni Battista Naldini (1535–1591) was an Italian painter in a late-Mannerist style, active in Florence.

Pietro della Vecchia

Pietro della Vecchia, Pietro della Vècchia or Pietro Vècchia, formerly incorrectly called Pietro Muttoni was a versatile Italian painter who worked in many genres and created altarpieces, portraits, genre scenes and grotesques. He also created pastiches of the work of leading Italian painters of the 16th century. He designed cartoons for mosaics and worked as an art restorer. Della Vecchia was also sought after as an art expert and did expert valuations of artworks. He worked most of his life in Venice and its environs except for a brief stay in Rome.

Giovanni Battista Zelotti

Giovanni Battista Zelotti was an Italian painter of the late Renaissance, active in Venice and her mainland territories.

Sebastiano Bombelli was an Italian painter, mainly active in Venice, during the Baroque period.

Giuseppe Ghezzi Italian painter (1634-1721)

Giuseppe Ghezzi was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Rome.

Filippo Abbiati Italian painter (1640–1715)

Filippo Abbiati (1640–1715) was an Italian painter of the early-Baroque period, active in Lombardy and Turin, together with Andrea Lanzani and Stefano Maria Legnani, he was a prominent mannerist painters from the School of Lombardy. Born in Milan, he was a pupil of the painter Antonio Busca. Alessandro Magnasco was one of his pupils along with Pietro Maggi and Giuseppe Rivola. Ticozzi claims he trained, along with Federigo Bianchi, with Carlo Francesco Nuvolone. Along with Bianchi, he painted the cupola of Sant'Alessandro Martire in Milan. Abbiati also painted a St. John preaching in the Wilderness for a church in Saronno.

Pietro Bellotti Italian painter (1625–1700)

Pietro Bellotti (1625–1700) was an Italian painter active in the Baroque period.

<i>Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects</i> 16th-century book of artist biographies by Giorgio Vasari

The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, often simply known as The Lives, is a series of artist biographies written by 16th-century Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, which is considered "perhaps the most famous, and even today the most-read work of the older literature of art", "some of the Italian Renaissance's most influential writing on art", and "the first important book on art history".

Stefano Ticozzi (1762-1836) was an Italian art historian.

Pierio Valeriano Bolzani

Pierio Valeriano (1477–1558), born Giovanni Pietro dalle Fosse, was a prominent Italian Renaissance humanist, specializing in the early study of Egyptian hieroglyphs. His most famous works were On the Ill Fortune of Learned Men and Hieroglyphica, sive, De sacris Aegyptiorvm literis commentarii, a study on hieroglyphics and their use in allegory.

Francesco Corneliani Italian painter (1740–1815)

Francesco Corneliani (1740-1815) was an Italian painter, mainly active in a Neoclassic style in his native Milan.

Urbano Dalle Fosse, better known as Urbano Bolzanio, was an Italian humanist and Hellenist.