Biography

Giovanni Antonio da Brescia was an Italian engraver. He is identified with the printmaker formerly known as Zoan Andrea. He is undocumented, but active from the 1490s in north Italy, and from c.1509 in Rome where he is active until at least 1519.

A painter named Zoan Andrea is recorded in a letter of September 1475 written to Ludovico II Gonzaga, 2nd Marchese of Mantua, by Simone Ardizoni da Reggio, a painter and engraver. Simone claimed that he and Zoan Andrea had been brutally assaulted on the orders of Andrea Mantegna. Mantegna was enraged to hear that the two had remade some of his prints. Their exact crime is not clear, but it has been suggested that they had re-engraved Mantegna's original plates. Given this connection with Mantegna's circle of engravers, it is likely that Zoan Andrea can be identified with the anonymous artist who signed himself ZA on 20 engravings, the earliest of which show a strong dependence on Mantegna, both in technique and composition. The three monogrammed engravings closest to Mantegna are Hercules and Deianira, Judith and Holofernes and an Ornamental Panel, in all of which cross-hatching is used extensively.