[Born at Pieve, in Italy, 1446. Died there or at Perugia, 1524. Aged
78.]
Immortal as the instructor of Raffaelle, and himself a celebrated
painter of the Umbrian school. He was opposed to the more modern style
of which Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and his own great pupil
Raffaelle, are the renowned masters. His pictures are religious,
earnest, and graceful, but wanting in variety of character. In his best
pictures, his colouring is excellent, and the expression of his heads
very beautiful, but his numerous works are of very unequal value and
merit. Vasari has branded this painter as avaricious, eccentric, sordid,
and irreligious. Modern writers have attempted to rescue him from the
harsh verdict pronounced by his early biographer.
[By Raimondo Trentanove.]