Gianfrancesco Penni also known as
Giovan Francesco, was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
painter, student of
RaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
.
Born in
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
to a family of weavers, Penni entered very early in
RaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
's workshop, and collaborated with him for several works, including the famous
RoomsThe four Stanze di Raffaello in the Palace of the Vatican form a suite of reception rooms, the public part of the papal apartments. They are famous for their frescoes, painted by Raphael and his workshop...
of the Vatican Palace as well as the frescoes of
Villa FarnesinaThe Villa Farnesina is a Renaissance suburban villa in the Via della Lungara, in the district of Trastevere in Rome, central Italy.The villa was built for Agostino Chigi, a rich Sienese banker and the treasurer of Pope Julius II. Between 1506–1510, the Sienese artist and pupil of Bramante,...
, both in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. Wölfflin and some other writers credited him with the entire actual execution of the
Raphael CartoonsThe Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoons for tapestries, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, painted by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515-16 and showing scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles...
, though more recent writers believe Raphael did much of the work himself. After the premature death of Raphael, Penni collaborated with
Giulio RomanoGiulio Romano was an Italian painter and architect. A pupil of Raphael, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism...
to the completion of works such as the Hall of Constantine, the
TransfigurationThe Transfiguration is considered the last painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael. It was left unfinished by Raphael, and is believed to have been completed by his pupil, Giulio Romano, shortly after Raphael's death in 1520...
, the
Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin (1525) in Monteluce, and the Palazzo Te of
MantuaMantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
. Penni also provided designs for the tapestries of the
life of Christ for Clement VII for the decoration of the
Sala del Concistoro in the
VaticanThe Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, which is located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Sacred Palace, the Papal Palace and the Palace of the Vatican...
. In 1526, he left Rome and rejoined with Giulio Romano, who had arrived in Mantua in 1524. According to Vasari, he was not well received by Giulio Romano. Soon began a long journey through Lombardy, Rome, to Naples, where he died in 1528. Among Penni's pupils was
Leonardo da PistoiaLeonardo Grazia or Leonardo da Pistoia was an Italian painter of the Renaissance period. Born in Pistoia in Tuscany, he died in Naples. Pistoia worked early on in Rome, and moved to Naples to work under Gianfrancesco Penni, also known as il Fattore...
(Grazia).
His brother Bartolommeo was an
artist of the Tudor courtThe artists of the Tudor court are the painters and limners engaged by the monarchs of England's Tudor dynasty and their courtiers between 1485 and 1603, from the reign of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I....
of
Henry VIIIHenry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, and another brother, Luca, ended up as one of the Italian artiists of the
School of FontainebleauThe Ecole de Fontainebleau refers to two periods of artistic production in France during the late Renaissance centered around the royal Château de Fontainebleau, that were crucial in forming the French version of Northern Mannerism....
.
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