Biography

Italian painter, part of a family of painters, father of Camillo Boccaccini. He is first recorded in 1493 in Genoa, where he contracted to paint the high altarpiece (untraced) for S Maria della Consolazione. He studied with followers of Mantegna, at Ferrara, and was a pupil or fellow-student of Domenico Panetti. In 1497 he was extracted from prison in Milan by the agent of Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and worked for the Duke in Ferrara until 1500. Perhaps as a consequence of having killed his common-law wife he then left, presumably for Venice, where he is recorded as residing in 1505. A fresco in Cremona Cathedral is dated 1506, and Cremona was his principal workplace thereafter. In Cremona he painted in Sant'Agostino a series of frescoes. A number of his paintings greatly resemble those of Perugino, among them those in the church of San Vincenzo.

His influences from Perugino are probably due to a period in Rome. His son, Camillo, was his pupil, other pupils included Garofalo, and Galeozzo Campi.