Lelio Orsi was an Italian

Italy

Italy , 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...

 Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 painter of the Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia is an affluent city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 170,000 inhabitants and is the main comune of the Province of Reggio Emilia....

 school. He was born and died in Novellara

Novellara

Novellara is a town and comune in the province of Reggio Emilia, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, with some 13,500 inhabitants. It is 19 km north of Reggio Emilia and has a railway station for the local train going from Reggio to Guastalla.-History:...

, and much of his work was completed in Reggio. He appears to have studied under such as Giovanni Giarola, a pupil of Antonio da Correggio

Antonio da Correggio

Antonio Allegri da Correggio , usually known as Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century...

. There is documentary evidence that he visited Rome in 1554-55, and may have been influenced by Girolamo Bedoli, Correggio and the prototypic mannerists

Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

 Giulio Romano

Giulio Romano

Giulio 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...

 as well as Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

 and his successor Daniele da Volterra

Daniele da Volterra

Daniele Ricciarelli , better known as Daniele da Volterra, was an Italian mannerist painter and sculptor.He is best remembered for his association, for better or worse, with the late Michelangelo. Several of Daniele's most important works were based on designs made for that purpose by Michelangelo...

. He is said to have trained Raffaellino da Reggio

Raffaellino da Reggio

Raffaellino da Reggio was an Italian painter from Emilia, active in a Mannerist style mainly in Rome.Also variously named Raffaellino Motta or Rafaellino da Reggio or a variety of combinations, he was born at Codemondo near Reggio Emilia. Initially trained under the painter Lelio Orsi...

. He was active in both exterior and interior decoration, and much of his work is in small cabinet pieces, not large altarpieces. Much of his output ended in the collections of the dukes of Este in Ferrara

Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

.
Orsi appears to be "reading" Correggio with the lens of Mannerist

Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

, the nocturnal, limned ethereal simplicity of Corregio here is constrained into contorted poses, perspective distorted, and settings crowded. The effect at times is unsettling. While the angels above unsheating divine swords are meant to carry the day, in The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine it appears that the execution was stymied by the breakdown of floors and gears.

Anthology of works

• The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine (1560) - Galleria Estense
  Galleria Estense
  The Galleria Estense or Estense Gallery is an art museum in Modena, with mainly Italian and Spanish paintings from the 14th to the 18th century, formed around the collection of the House of Este, rulers of Modena . It is located on the upper floor of the Palazzo dei Musei, on the St. Augustine...
  
  , Modena
• The Dead Christ Flanked by Charity and Justice
• Madonna della Ghiara (1569)
• Saints Cecilia & Valerian - Galleria Borghese
  Galleria Borghese
  The Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. It is a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens...
  
  , Rome
• Noli Me Tangere - Wadsworth Atheneum
  Wadsworth Atheneum
  The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public art museum in the United States, with significant holdings of French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as extensive holdings in early American furniture and...
  
  , Hartford
• The Adoration of the Shepherds (1565-70) - Berlin, Dahlem
• The Walk to Emmaus (1565) - National Gallery, London
• St. George and the Dragon (1550) - Museo di Capodimonte
  Museo di Capodimonte
  The National Museum of Capodimonte is located in the Palace of Capodimonte, a grand Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy. The museum is the prime repository of Neapolitan painting and decorative art, with several important works from other Italian schools of painting, and some important Ancient Roman...
  
  , Naples
• Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (1545) - Strossmayer Gallery, Zagreb

External links

• http://www.artcyclopedia.com/commons/lelio-orsi.html