BASTIANI, LAZZARO

BASTIANI, LAZZARO. - A Venetian painter (b. ca. 1430, d. in Venice in 1512), he is first recorded in 1449; he must have trained in the Paduan orbit of Squarcione (to whom the Polyptych of Matera, 1460-70, is attributed), coming close to Antonio and Bartolomeo Vivarini as well as to Iacopo Bellini (Adoration of the Magi, P. Morgan collection; the Nativity at the Accademia in Venice, dated 1480, is his first dated work). His dry and harsh manner in the outlines (cf. two panels with scenes from the life of Christ, Accademia in Venice) suggests an activity as an engraver and miniaturist, of which no record survives. After 1475 he was influenced by the models of Antonello da Messina, often through the mediation of Alvise Vivarini (p. 14 of S. Veneranda, Accademia in Venice), but he ended up repeating in a laborious and monotonous way his own rigid scheme of compositional composure and formal rigor; in the last years of the century, the influence of Gentile Bellini (Funeral of St. Jerome, Accademia in Venice; Donation of the relic of the Cross, ibid.) is joined by that of Carpaccio, of whom B. is said to have been a master.