Author Description

Sebastiano del Piombo ( [seba'stja?no del 'pjombo]; c. 1485 - 21 June 1547) was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance and early Mannerist periods famous as the only major artist of the period to combine the colouring of the Venetian school in which he was trained with the monumental forms of the Roman school. He belongs both to the painting school of his native city, Venice, where he made significant contributions before he left for Rome in 1511, and that of Rome, where he stayed for the rest of his life, and whose style he thoroughly adopted. Born Sebastiano Luciani, after coming to Rome he became known as Sebastiano Veneziano or Viniziano (Sebastian the Venetian), until in 1531 he became the Keeper of the Seal to the Papacy, and so got the nickname del Piombo thereafter, meaning of the lead, from his new job title of Piombatore. Friends like Michelangelo and Ariosto called him Fra Bastiano. Never a very disciplined or productive painter, his artistic productivity fell still further after becoming piombatore, which committed him to attend on the pope most days, and travel with him. He also had to take holy orders as a friar, despite having a wife and two children. He now painted mostly portraits, and relatively few works of his survive compared to his great contemporaries in Rome. This limited his involvement with the Mannerist style of his later years. Having achieved success as a lutanist in Venice when young, he turned to painting and trained with Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. When he first went to Rome he worked alongside Raphael and then be..