MORETTO da Brescia

Acquired for the Museum in 1895 it was at first held to be by Moroni. Frizzoni traced it to Moretto in 1903. The subject is alternately designated as St Louis and St Placid. The martyr-saint is placed as in a portrait, even though everything else seems to point to a fragment of an altarpiece. The very position of the figure, the drapery on the right, which adumbrates a corresponding one on the left, with, in the centre, a Madonna against the background of a typical Veneto scenery, would appear to suggest a work of Venetian inspiration, such as can be seen in Tosio Martinengo of Brescia’s altarpiece of St Anthony of Padua. His richly “atmospheric” Venetian colour scheme in particular bears witness to yet another attempt of his to test the tonal gamut. This is the particular moment in time that marks the birth of Moretto’s true art at the confluence of Venetian painting and Brescian milieu, stamped by Moroni’s, Romanino’s and Savoldo’s work, and seminal to an alternating pattern of fabulous colouring shot through with the cachets of the radical tradition of Lombardy.

Similarly to other works from the Brescia school the painting has the character of the genre. The inscription on the band of the bouquet: IVSTUS EX FIDE VIVIT (The just lives with faith).

Moretto worked largely in Brescia, although he assimilated Venetian painting technique early in his career. Given its proximity to Milan, Brescia was culturally and religiously dependent upon the Lombard capital being part of its archdiocese in spite of belonging to Venice’s mainland empire.

This painting probably depicts Count Fortunato Martinengo Cesaresco (1512-1552), a member of a branch of Brescia’s most important noble clan. He was a leading literary figure in the city, founder of the Accademia dei Dubbiosi, and friend of Lodovico Dolce and Pietro Aretino, among others. He married in 1542, and this could well be a painting done at the time of his betrothal. Lavish details combine to evoke an opulent interior and a wonderfully patterned painted surface.

In this altarpiece, commissioned by the Confraternity of the Holy Cross for their chapel in Brescia Cathedral, Moretto placed the Cross and the pathetic figure of Christ accusingly before the worshipper, the weeping angel in the background demonstrating an appropriately repentant and grieving response. Very limited in its palette and chilled by a gray, sepulchral light, the altarpiece was probably inspired by contemporary devotional books.

As far as we know, the murals that Moretto da Brescia and his workshop painted in the Palazzo Martinengo-Salvadego, in Brescia, combining fresco, tempera, and oils were unique. It is probable that the eight female figures are portraits of wives and daughters from the many branches of the Martinengo family. Even if it is no longer possible to identify the sitters precisely, it is clear that the patron was primarily seeking to create a kind of “gallery of beauties.”

This decoration open up the walls of the room to a great extent.

It is probable that the eight female figures depicted in the room are portraits of wives and daughters from the many branches of the Martinengo family. Even if it is no longer possible to identify the sitters precisely, it is clear that the patron was primarily seeking to create a kind of “gallery of beauties.”

It is worth noting that in a list of beautiful women in the various cities of Italy, published in 1552, Brescia had the largest number of female beauties, and the women of the Martinengo family occupy first place: in addition to the family’s two daughters, there were eight ladies married to members of this house.

It is probable that the eight female figures depicted in the room are portraits of wives and daughters from the many branches of the Martinengo family. Even if it is no longer possible to identify the sitters precisely, it is clear that the patron was primarily seeking to create a kind of “gallery of beauties.”

It is worth noting that in a list of beautiful women in the various cities of Italy, published in 1552, Brescia had the largest number of female beauties, and the women of the Martinengo family occupy first place: in addition to the family’s two daughters, there were eight ladies married to members of this house.

Brescia, an ancient town at the southernmost edge of the foothills of the Alps, was once part of the Duchy of Milan but had been ruled by the more liberal Republic of Venice since 1426. It was occupied by the French in 1509, rebelled in 1512 and was retaken and sacked, returning to Venice only in 1516. Alessandro Bonvicino, called Moretto, a native of Brescia, must have lived through these bloody events. With Savoldo, Romanino and, for a time, his own pupil Moroni, Moretto was one of the leading painters of the town, known especially for his religious pictures. Executed for patrons mainly associated with the Catholic Reformation, they are notable for their clear and explicit doctrinal content and the hypnotic power of their realism, often expressed through everyday settings and low-life models as well as through the minute depiction of surface detail.

This painting, probably executed for private devotion, is an example of a type popular in the Renaissance: landscape format with half-length figures of saints with the Virgin. It developed from Giovanni Bellini’s panels into Titian’s dialogue-like scenes, the type Moretto was following here.

In this painting Moretto blends Lombard influences with the new stylistic elements of Venetian painting. The Madonna sits in front of an Italian townscape reminiscent of Giorgione. The inscription “HIC ARMIS VICTOR DE ORBE TRIUMPHABIS” (You will triumph over the earth with these victorious weapons) alludes to Christ’s victory over death.

In this important early work by Moretto, Christ is mourned by the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalen. By introducing the grandeur and monumental composition of Venetian masters, particularly Titian, Moretto brought new stature to the local Brescian shool of painting.

Tullia d’Aragona (c. 1510-1556) was a celebrated 16th century Venetian courtesan, author and philosopher. Her life typified well the contradiction-laden customs of the Renaissance era. In the nineteenth century the figure in this painting was identified alternatively as either Tullia or Herodias. Eventually it was realized that the picture could portray a contemporary of the painter in the guise of somebody else. The interpretation of the inscription led to the conclusion that the figure was more likely to be Salome, Herodias’s daughter.

Like most of Moretto’s female portraits, some of the poetess’s features are idealised, but the somewhat accentuated nose, the bright eyes, and the long neck reflect her actual physiognomy. The light coming from the top left highlights the pearls in her hair.

Although this picture was painted well after the execution of the charismatic theologian Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), comparison with documented portraits gives credence to this traditional identification. Savonarola was revered throughout northern Italy at this period, and especially in Milan and Brescia, and many were hopefully awaiting his canonization.

This work is one of Moretto’s comparatively rare aristocratic portraits. Although influenced by German pictures in its early adoption of the full-length life-size format popularised by Cranach and adopted by Holbein, it is more indebted to Venetian painting. Moretto was said to have studied with Titian, and must have known the poetic works of Giorgione. He was certainly also aware of Lotto, who worked for a while in nearby Bergamo. The painting owes something to all of them, notably in its sitter’s melancholy expression as he gazes abstractedly beyond the marble loggia of a Renaissance villa. He may have been a member of the Avogadro family of Brescia, for the portrait comes from the palace of direct descendants. Genealogical research suggests that he was Gerolamo II Avogadro, the father of Moroni’s ‘Knight of the Wounded Foot’.

The attribution to Moretto is debated.

This is one of the masterpieces of Moretto. The kneeling man is probably the donator.

This sober, monumental late altarpiece by Moretto was originally in the Brescian church of Sant’Alessandro. It is an example of Moretto’s ability to bring together classical imagery - such as the architecture and especially the putto with his Roman-inspired drapery - and passages of intense scrutiny of the natural world. Chief among these is the figure of the pilgrim saint which has surely been studied from life.

This painting is one section of a triptych with Old testament scenes. The triptych was displayed in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, Brescia. By the mid-eighteenth century the three canvases had been separated and sold to various private collections. The paintings demonstrate the remarkable coexistence of classical and naturalistic elements in Moretto’s work.

This panel is one of Moretto’s most successful private devotional works painted in the period when Moretto had achieved a highly individual balance between the two main artistic influences on his style - Venetian and Lombard. The composition and poses reflect the Venetian tradition of painting, while Lombard influence can be seen in the strong focus on realism.

St Anthony was popular in sixteenth century Italian art due to his reputation as a charismatic healer and guardian. He is often illustrated with the infant Christ (for his charity), a lily and a book (for his wisdom).

Moretto was a painter influenced by Lombard naturalism but he preferred the intimate, muted study of reality characteristic of Foppa, Borgognone and Savoldo to the exuberant realism of Romanino. Among the greatest works of his youth can certainly be placed the ‘Virgin of Carmel’ who is presented in the powerful and carefully gauged monumentally of a Madonna of Mercy with the figures of the Carmelites the Blessed Angelo and St. Simon Stock at her sides and a crowd of devotees below, probably members of the Brescian family the Ottoboni.

The conspicuously earthly nature of the figures imparts to the celestial apparition a feeling of everyday reality, rendered with ineffable naturalness by the quiet light which defines poses, gestures, spiritual feelings themselves with such plastic objectivity. This ‘bourgeois’ view of appearances marks the role of primary importance played by Moretto in Lombard realism which was to see Michelangelo Caravaggio as its greatest proponent around the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth.