ROMANINO, Girolamo
(b. ca. 1484, Brescia, d. ca. 1559, Brescia)

Biography

Romanino (Girolamo Romani) was an Italian painter influenced by the Venetian school. He lived in Brescia, near Milan, but travelled extensively in Northern Italy. His early training was in Venice where he was influenced by Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian, as is evident in his Coronation of the Virgin with Saints painted for the church of Santa Giustina in Padua. He painted mainly religious subjects which include a Pietà (1510) his earliest dated work (Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice).

Echoes of Lotto's work are present in his Virgin and Child in San Francesco in Brescia. He worked with Pordenone in 1519-20 on the decoration of the Duomo in Cremona and, after returning to Brescia, with Moretto he explored Caravaggio's strong sense of naturalism and dramatic lighting, as is clear in the Supper at Emmaus and the Nativity in the Pinacoteca Tosini-Martinengo in Brescia.

Basic to an understanding of Romanino's style are the frescoes in Pisogne, including the Crucifixion in Santa Maria della Neve and the secular frescoes in the Buonconsiglio Castle in Trent, painted in 1532 with lively representations of everyday life animated by a genuine popular sensibility.