Il Pordenone
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
of the Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
school, active during the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. Vasari, his main biographer, identifies him as Giovanni Antonio Licinio.
Biography
Pordenone
Pordenone is a comune of Pordenone province of northeast Italy in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.The name comes from the Latin "Portus Naonis" meaning the port on the river Noncello - History :...
in Friuli
Friuli
Friuli is an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i.e. the province of Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, excluding Trieste...
. He ultimately dropped the name of Licinio, having quarrelled with his brothers, one of whom had wounded him in the hand; he then called himself Regillo, or De Regillo. Others say he once took up his maternal name of Cuticelli His signature runs Antonius Portunaensis, or De Portunaonis. He was knighted as a cavaliere by Charles V
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
.
As a painter, Pordenone was a scholar of Pellegrino da San Daniele
Pellegrino da San Daniele
Pellegrino da San Daniele was an Italian painter in the late-Quattrocento and Renaissance styles, active in the Friulian region....
, but a leading influence of his style was Giorgione
Giorgione
Giorgione was a Venetian painter of the High Renaissance in Venice, whose career was cut off by his death at a little over thirty. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are acknowledged for certain to be his work...
; the popular story that he was a fellow-pupil with Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
under Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini
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 is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
is false. It was claimed that Pordenone's first commission was given him by a grocer in his home town, to try his boast that he could paint a picture as the priest commenced High Mass, and complete it by the time Mass was over; he completed the picture in the required time. The district about Pordenone
Pordenone
Pordenone is a comune of Pordenone province of northeast Italy in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.The name comes from the Latin "Portus Naonis" meaning the port on the river Noncello - History :...
had been somewhat fertile in capable painters; but Pordenone is the best known, a vigorous chiaroscurist and flesh painter. The 1911 Britannica states that "so far as mere flesh-painting is concerned he was barely inferior to Titian in breadth, pulpiness and tone". The two were rivals for a time, and Licinio would sometimes affect to wear arms while he was painting. He excelled in portraits; he was equally at home in fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
and in oil-color. He executed many works in Pordenone and elsewhere in Friuli
Friuli
Friuli is an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i.e. the province of Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, excluding Trieste...
, Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
, and Venice; at one time he settled in Piacenza
Piacenza
Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...
, where one of his most celebrated church pictures, St. Catherine disputing with the Doctors in Alexandria is located; the figure of St. Paul
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
in connection with this picture is his own portrait.
Ferrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
to court; here soon afterwards, in 1539, he died, not without suspicion of poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
. His later works are comparatively careless and superficial; and generally he is better in male figures than in female-the latter being somewhat too sturdy-and the composition of his subject-pictures is scarcely on a level with their other merits. Pordenone appears to have been a vehement self-asserting man, to which his style as a painter corresponds.
Three of his principal pupils were Bernardino Licinio
Bernardino Licinio
Bernardino Licinio was an Italian High Renaissance painter of Venice and Lombardy. Born in Poscante . He mainly painted portraits and religious canvases.-Anthology of Works:*Holy Family with the Magdalene...
, named Il Sacchiense, his son-in-law Pomponio Amalteo
Pomponio Amalteo
Pomponio Amalteo was an Italian painter of the Venetian school.He was born at Motta di Livenza in Veneto. He was a pupil and son-in-law of Il Pordenone, whose style he closely imitated; he inherited Pordenone's studio at Friuli, where he led a long career...
, and Giovanni Maria Calderari.
Partial anthology of works
- Study of the Martyrdom of Saint Peter Martyr (1526, J. Paul Getty MuseumJ. Paul Getty MuseumThe J. Paul Getty Museum, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California...
) - Saint Bonaventure, (National Gallery, London)
- Saint Louis of Toulouse, (National Gallery, LondonNational Gallery, LondonThe National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
) - Saints Prosdocimus and St. Peter (1516, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh).
- Golgotha (1520-21, fresco, Cathedral of Cremona)
- Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (c. 1525, Parish church, SuseganaSuseganaSusegana is a comune in the Province of Treviso in the Italian region Veneto, located about north of Venice and about north of Treviso.-History:...
, Treviso) - St Lorenzo Giustiniani and Other Saints (1532, originally in S. Maria dell' Orto, now Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice)
- Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints (1525)
- Saint Martin and Saint Christopher (1528-29, Church of San Rocco, Venice)
- San Lorenzo Giustiniani and Two Friars with Saints (1532, Galleria dell'Accademia, FlorenceFlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
) - Saints Sebastian, Roch and Catherine (1535, Church of San Giovanni ElemosinarioSan Giovanni ElemosinarioSan Giovanni Elemosinario is a church of Venice, northern Italy, dedicated to Saint John the Almsgiver.This church was founded in 1071, and was completely destroyed by the disastrous Rialto fire in 1514. The church was rebuilt by Antonio Abbondi called Scarpagnino. The painter Antonio Vassilacchi...
, Venice) - Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (1525, Parish Church, Grandcamp, France).
- The dispute of Saint Catherine with Pagan Philosophers" (Cathedral of PiacenzaPiacenzaPiacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...
) - Deposition and Immacolata Concezione (1530, Church of the "Annunziata", CortemaggioreCortemaggioreCortemaggiore is an Italian comune located in the Province of Piacenza.Founded in the 1479 by the Pallavicino family, over an old roman site, it was the capital of the ancient Stato Pallavicino....
) - San Gottardo and Saints Sebastian and Rocco (Museo Civico d’Arte, Pordenone)
- Saint Catherine and Martyrs (Museo Civico di ConeglianoConeglianoConegliano is a town and comune of the Veneto region, Italy, in the province of Treviso, about north by rail from the town of Treviso. The population of the city is of around 36,000 people. The remains of a castle that was built in the 10th century remain on a nearby hill...
) - Drawings from Ambrosiana Library, Milan
- Magi (Treviso Cathedral)