After Pisanello’s achievement and his marked effect on early Venetian art, Veronese painting fell for a time to a very low ebb; but Mantegna’s influence was strongly felt here, and art revived in Liberale da Verona, Falconetto, Casoto, the Morone and Girolamo dai Libri, painters delightful in themselves, but having little connection with the school of Venice. Francesco Bonsignori, however, shook himself free from the narrow circle of Veronese art, where he had for a time followed Liberale, and grows more like the Vicentines, Montagna and Buonconsiglio. He is careful about his drawing, but his figures, like those of many of these provincial painters, are short, bony and vulgar, very unlike the slender, distinguished type of the great Paduan. Under the name of Francesco da Verona, Bonsignori works in the new palace of the Gonzagas, and several pictures painted for Mantua are now scattered in different collections. At Verona he has left four fine altarpieces. He went early to Venice, where he became the pupil of the Vivarini. His faces grow soft and oval, and the very careful outlines suggest the influence of Bellini.
Girolamo Mocetto was journeyman to Giovanni Bellini; in fact, Vasari says that a “Dead Christ” in S. Francesco della Vigna, signed with Bellini’s name, is from Mocetto’s hand. His short, broad figures have something of Bartolommeo Vivarini’s character.
Francesco Torbido went to Venice to study with Giorgione, and we can trace his master’s manner of turning half tones into deep shades; but he does not really understand the Giorgionesque treatment, in which shade was always rich and deep, but never dark, dirty and impenetrable, nor in the lights can he produce the clear glow of Giorgione. Another Veronese, Cavazzola, has left a masterpiece upon which any painter might be happy to rest his reputation; the “Gattemalata with an Esquire” in the Uffizi, a picture noble in feeling and in execution, and one which owes a great deal to Venetian portrait-painters.
PRINCIPAL WORKS
Pordenone.
| Casara. | Old Church: Frescoes, 1525. |
| Colatto. | S. Salvatore: Frescoes (E.). |
| Cremona. | Duomo: Frescoes; Christ before Pilate; Way to Golgotha; Nailing to Cross; Crucifixion, 1521; Madonna enthroned with Saints and Donor, 1522. |
| Murano. | S. Maria d. Angeli: Annunciation (L.). |
| Piacenza. | Madonna in Campagna: Frescoes and Altarpiece, 1529-31. |
| Pordenone. | Duomo: Madonna of Mercy, 1515; S. Mark enthroned with Saints, 1535. |
| Municipio: SS. Gothard, Roch, and Sebastian, 1525. | |
| Spilimbergo. | Duomo: Assumption; Conversion of S. Paul. |
| Sensigana. | Madonna and Saints. |
| Torre. | Madonna and Saints. |
| Treviso. | Duomo: Adoration of Magi; Frescoes, 1520. |
| Venice. | Academy: Portraits; Madonna, Saints, and the Ottobono Family; Saints. |
| S. Giovanni Elemosinario: Saints. | |
| S. Rocco: Saints, 1528. |
Pellegrino.
| San Daniele. | Frescoes in S. Antonio. |
| Cividale. | S. Maria: Madonna with six Saints. |
| Venice. | Academy: Annunciation. |
Romanino.