Giorgione was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are firmly attributed to him. The uncertainty surrounding the identity and meaning of his work has made Giorgione one of the most mysterious figures in European art.
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio, known in English as Titian, was a Venetian painter during the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, 'from Cadore', taken from his native region.
Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He was considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it towards a more sensuous and colouristic style. Through the use of clear, slow-drying oil paints, Giovanni created deep, rich tints and detailed shadings. His sumptuous coloring and fluent, atmospheric landscapes had a great effect on the Venetian painting school, especially on his pupils Giorgione and Titian.
Gentile Bellini was an Italian painter of the school of Venice. He came from Venice's leading family of painters, and at least in the early part of his career was more highly regarded than his younger brother Giovanni Bellini, the reverse of the case today. From 1474 he was the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice, and as well as his portraits he painted a number of very large subjects with multitudes of figures, especially for the Scuole Grandi of Venice, wealthy confraternities that were very important in Venetian patrician social life.
Jacopo Bellini was one of the founders of the Renaissance style of painting in Venice and northern Italy. His sons Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and his son-in-law Andrea Mantegna, were also famous painters.
Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio, but also called Antonello degli Antoni and Anglicized as Anthony of Messina, was a Sicilian painter from Messina, active during the Early Italian Renaissance. His work shows strong influences from Early Netherlandish painting, although there is no documentary evidence that he ever travelled beyond Italy. Giorgio Vasari credited him with the introduction of oil painting into Italy. Unusually for a south Italian artist of the Renaissance, his work proved influential on painters in northern Italy, especially in Venice.
Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian Renaissance painting during his lifetime. He was influenced by the style of Antonello da Messina and Early Netherlandish art. For this reason, and also because so much of his best work remains in Venice, his art has been rather neglected by comparison with other Venetian contemporaries, such as Giovanni Bellini or Giorgione.
Leonardo Loredan was the 75th doge of the Republic of Venice from 1501 until his death in 1521. A wartime ruler, his dogeship was one of the most important in the history of Venice.
The Pinacoteca di Brera is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings, an outgrowth of the cultural program of the Brera Academy, which shares the site in the Palazzo Brera.
The decade of the 1470s in art involved some significant events.
The Feast of the Gods is an oil painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, with substantial additions in stages to the left and center landscape by Dosso Dossi and Titian. It is one of the few mythological pictures by the Venetian artist. Completed in 1514, it was his last major work. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., which calls it "one of the greatest Renaissance paintings in the United States".
The Vendramin were a rich merchant family of Venice, Italy, who were among the case nuove or "new houses" who joined the patrician class when the Libro d'Oro was opened after the battle of Chioggia. Andrea Vendramin served as the sole Vendramin Doge from 1476–78, at the height of Venetian power, though in 1477 an Antonio Feleto was imprisoned, then banished, for remarking in public that the Council of the Forty-One must have been hard-pressed to elect a cheesemonger Doge. In his youth, Andrea and his brother Luca, in joint ventures, used to ship from Alexandria enough goods to fill a galley or a galley and a half, Malipiero recorded in retrospect: even his factors grew rich managing his affairs. At this period, mentions of Vendramins in various fields of business occur; Luca Vendramin (d.1527) founded a successful bank on the still-wooden Rialto Bridge with three Capelli brothers in 1507, but in his will of 1524 forbade his sons from continuing in banking. An early text on accounting mentions that the Vendramins' soap is so reliably good that you can buy it without inspecting it. Later they owned an important theatre.
Georg Fuggervon der Lilie (1453–1506) was a German merchant of the Fugger dynasty.
The Feast of the Rosary is a 1506 oil painting by Albrecht Dürer, now in the National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic. According to Czechoslovakian art historian Jaroslav Pešina, it is "probably the most superb painting that a German master has ever created."
The Portrait of a Condottiere is an oil on panel painting by Italian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini, executed around 1495–1500. It is housed in the National Gallery of Art at Washington, DC, United States.
St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria is an oil painting by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, dated to 1504–07 and held in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.
Portrait of a Young Man in Red is a 1485-1490 oil on panel portrait by Giovanni Bellini, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. He had been making portraits since 1474 and this is held to be one of his best in the genre, though its subject is unknown. It may have been in Andrea Vendramin's collection in Venice in 1627. It passed to count Manfredi von Ingenheim and was handed down to his heirs until 1930, when it was sold. Andrew W. Mellon then acquired it and it passed to the National Gallery of Art with the rest of his collection in 1937.
The Barbarigo Altarpiece or Enthroned Madonna and Child with Angel Musicians and Saint Mark, Saint Augustine and Doge Agostino Barbarigo is a 1488 oil painting on panel by Giovanni Bellini, now in the church of San Pietro Martire in Murano.
The House of Loredan-Santo Stefano was a cadet branch of the House of Loredan that existed from the 14th century until 1767. The branch was mainly settled in the Palazzo Loredan in Campo Santo Stefano, which they acquired in 1536 from the Mocenigo family. The progenitor of the branch is considered to be Gerolamo Loredan "dal Barbaro" di S. Vitale (d.~1474), father of Doge Leonardo Loredan and Dogaressa Caterina Loredan. Besides Leonardo, the branch also gave Doge Francesco Loredan.
