Marco d'Oggiono was an Italian

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...

 Renaissance painter and a chief pupil of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

, many of whose works he copied.

Biography and works

He was born at Oggiono

Oggiono

Oggiono is a comune in the Province of Lecco in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 40 km northeast of Milan and about 8 km southwest of Lecco....

 near Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

. Of the details of his life we know almost nothing — not even the date of his important series of 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...

es painted for the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Milan. He died probably in Milan. Lanzi gives 1530 as the date of his death, but various writers in Milan say it took place in 1540, and now the best accepted date is 1549.

He was a hard-working artist, but his paintings are wanting in vivacity of feeling and purity of drawing, while, in his composition, it has been well said "Intensity of color does duty for intensity of sentiment." He copied Da Vinci's Last Supper

The Last Supper (Leonardo)

The Last Supper is a 15th century mural painting in Milan created by Leonardo da Vinci for his patron Duke Ludovico Sforza and his duchess Beatrice d'Este...

repeatedly, and one of his best copies is in the possession of the Royal Academy of Arts in England.

His two most notable pictures — one in the Pinacoteca di Brera (representing St. Michael), and the other in the private gallery of the Bonomi family (representing the Madonna) — are signed with his name in Latin, "Marcus".

His other works can be seen at Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg and Turin, the one in Russia being a clever copy of the Last Supper by Leonardo. He cannot be regarded as an important artist, or even a very good copyist, but in his pictures the sky and mountains and the distant landscapes are always worthy of consideration, and in these we probably get the painter's best original work.