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16th-century Italian painters

A thief climbed scaffolding in Vienna in 2003 and walked off with Benvenuto Cellini's gold salt cellar. The painters and artists here worked in Italy's 1500s, and their lives took odd turns. Michelangelo claimed to live poor while holding about 50,000 gold ducats. Tintoretto hung a full-sized painting on a ceiling instead of sending a sketch. Sofonisba Anguissola painted a portrait of Philip II that others were credited with for years. Rosso Fiorentino, named for his red hair, carried Italian painting to the French court.

  • Leonardo da VinciLeonardo da Vinci wrote most of his notes in mirror-image cursive, right to left.
  • MichelangeloMichelangelo said he lived like a poor man, yet he was worth about 50,000 gold ducats.
  • TitianTitian painted his own face into a prayer against the plague. The plague reached Venice, and he died in 1576.
  • TintorettoTintoretto secretly hung a full-sized painting on a ceiling instead of submitting a sketch.
  • Francesco PrimaticcioFrancesco Primaticcio died in 1570 before his Valois Chapel at Saint-Denis was finished.
  • RaphaelRaphael painted Michelangelo into The School of Athens as Heraclitus.
  • Filippino LippiEvery workshop in Florence closed for a day when painter Filippino Lippi died in 1504. His mother was a nun.
  • Niccolò dell'AbbateNiccolò dell'Abbate was a painter born in Modena, the son of a violinist, who died in 1571 at the royal château of Fontainebleau in France. His birth year is uncertain, either 1509 or 1512. He worked in fresco and in oils, in the Mannerist…
  • Rosso FiorentinoRosso Fiorentino's nickname came from his striking red hair. He later carried Italian painting to the French court.
  • Paolo VeroneseFacing the Inquisition in 1573, painter Paolo Veronese refused to repaint his Last Supper. He renamed it instead.
  • Sandro BotticelliIn 1811, no buyer wanted Botticelli's The Mystical Nativity. In 1857, more than a million people saw it in Manchester.
  • CaravaggioCaravaggio's Grooms' Madonna hung in Saint Peter's Basilica for exactly two days.
  • Jacopo de' BarbariJacopo de' Barbari left behind more spellings of his name than certainties about his life. Documents and contemporaries call him de'Barbari, de Barberi, Barbaro, Barberino, Barbarigo or Barberigo, and these are only some of the variants.…
  • Giorgio VasariGiorgio Vasari's word rinascita, meaning rebirth, became the name of the Renaissance.
  • Andrea MantegnaAndrea Mantegna's teacher mocked his first frescoes as figures "like men made of stone."
  • Benvenuto CelliniA thief climbed scaffolding in Vienna in 2003 and stole Benvenuto Cellini's gold salt cellar.
  • Sofonisba AnguissolaA portrait of King Philip II was long credited to other painters, but Sofonisba Anguissola painted it.
  • Giulio ClovioBoth Italy and Croatia celebrate the painter Giulio Clovio as their own. He was born in Croatia but worked in Italy.

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