Which Early Renaissance artist did Vasari make a mistake about, was Raphael's father, was a pioneer of landscape, was godless painter, or became a lay brother?

Q. What artist was erroneously stated by Vasari to have murdered Domenico Veneziano?

A. Andrea del Castagno

Domenico Veneziano (c. 1410-1461) was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance and one of the founders of the 15th-century Florentine school of painting. He was a contemporary of Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi; around 1440 he painted his stunningly rich and detailed masterpiece, the “Adoration of the Magi.” Today the painting can be viewed at the Staatliche Museen in Berlin.

Little is known about Veneziano. Even art historian Giorgio Vasari seemed to fill the artist’s biography with anecdotes, such as the story that alleges that he was murdered by Italian fresco artist Andrea del Castagno (1421-1457). However, Castagno died of the plague in 1457, four years before Veneziano died.

Q. What artist was the father of Raphael?

A. Giovanni Santi

Giovanni Santi (1435-1494) was court painter to the Duke of Urbino and a poet and painter in the court of art patron Prince Frederico da Montefeltre. He painted many altarpieces and frescoes, several of which reside in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino. His work is pleasing but not great. Fortunately, he recognized his son's enormous talent very early on and arranged Raphael’s apprenticeship with Perugino (1445-1523, another highly-regarded Renaissance painter.

Today Santi’s warm and expressive fresco, “Madonna and Child with a Book,” can be seen at Raphael’s House in Urbino.

Q. What artist was the leading practitioner of the Danube School?

A. Albrecht Altdorfer

German painter and printmaker Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538) was a pioneer of landscape in art. Members of the Danube School were among the first painters to regularly use pure landscape as the basis for a painting, and their figures are often expressive and highly charged with life.

Altdorfer’s beautifully colorful painting, “Resurrection” (1518), currently hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Q. What artist was expelled from Nuremberg for his extreme Protestantism?

A. Barthel Beham

Barthel Beham (1502-1540) was a German painter, engraver, and miniaturist who learned his artistic skills from his older brother, accomplished artist Hans Sebald Beham, and from master Albrecht Durer. Beham didn’t hide his lack of belief in Jesus Christ, baptism, and transubstantiation. Along with his older brother and artist Georg Pencz, who also studied under Albrecht Durer, he became known as one of "the three godless painters” and in 1525, during the Protestant Reformation and Peasants’ War, was banished from his native city of Lutheran Nuremberg. Although later pardoned, he moved to Catholic Munich to work for the Bavarian Dukes William IV and Ludwig X, producing many portraits as well as illustrations related to the Bible, mythology, and history.

Q. What artist ended his years as a lay brother in the monastery in Loreto?

A. Lorenzo Lotto

During much of his lifetime, Renaissance master Lotto (1489-1556) was a well-respected and popular painter. But towards the end of his life, overshadowed by giant Titian, it became increasingly difficult for him to earn a living and he frequently moved from town to town searching for patrons and commissions. In 1550 one of his works had an unsuccessful auction in Ancona. As recorded in his personal account book, this deeply disillusioned him. As he had always been a deeply religious man, he entered in 1552 the Holy Sanctuary at Loreto, becoming a lay brother.

Sources:

Bailey, Colin J. The Art Quiz Book: 2000+ Questions on Painters and Paintings. Station Press: Scotland, 1995.

Grove Dictionary of Art. Oxford University Press, 2007.