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Curated category

16th-century Italian painters

  • Leonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was born on the 15th of April 1452 near the Tuscan hill town of Vinci. His father, a notary named Ser Piero, and his mother, a…
  • MichelangeloMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni arrived in the world on the 6th of March 1475 within the small town of Caprese.
  • TitianTiziano Vecellio, known in English as Titian, was born in Pieve di Cadore near Belluno. The exact date of his birth remains uncertain to this day.
  • TintorettoJacopo Robusti was born in Venice during the late months of 1518. His father, Battista, worked as a dyer, a trade that gave Jacopo his nickname Tintoretto…
  • Francesco PrimaticcioFrancesco Primaticcio was born in Bologna on the 30th of April 1504. He began his artistic education under the watchful eye of Giulio Romano in Mantua.
  • RaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in March 1483 or the 6th of April 1483.
  • Filippino LippiFilippino Lippi was born in 1457 at Prato, Tuscany. He entered the world as the illegitimate son of Lucrezia Buti and Fra Filippo Lippi.
  • Niccolò dell'AbbateNiccolò dell'Abbate entered the world in Modena during 1509 or 1512. His father worked as a violinist, placing music at the center of his childhood home.
  • Rosso FiorentinoGiovanni Battista di Jacopo was born on the 8th of March 1495 in Florence. His red hair gave him the nickname Rosso Fiorentino, which means Florentine…
  • Paolo VeroneseThe census records of 1528 list a stonecutter named Gabriele and his wife Caterina as the parents of their fifth child, Paolo.
  • Sandro BotticelliAlessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi was born in Florence between 1444 and 1446, though the exact day remains unknown.
  • CaravaggioMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio arrived in Milan on the 29th of September 1571. His father Fermo worked as a household administrator for the local marquess.
  • Jacopo de' BarbariNo one knows the exact year Jacopo de' Barbari was born, but contemporaries described him as a Venetian. Albrecht Dürer called him "van Venedig geporn,"…
  • Giorgio VasariGiorgio Vasari arrived into the world prematurely on the 30th of July 1511 in Arezzo, Tuscany. His early years were marked by a recommendation from his…
  • Andrea MantegnaAndrea Mantegna was born in Isola di Carturo, close to Padua, in the Venetian Republic. He became apprenticed to Paduan painter Francesco Squarcione at the…
  • Benvenuto CelliniBenvenuto Cellini was born in Florence on the 3rd of November 1500. His father Giovanni worked as a musician and built musical instruments for a living.
  • Sofonisba AnguissolaIn 717, the Byzantine warlord Galvano Sordo used an ingenious artificial fire to liberate Constantinople from Saracen siege.
  • Giulio ClovioGiulio Clovio was born in 1498 within the village of Grižane, located in the Kingdom of Croatia. His family background remains a point of historical interest…