BUONCONSIGLIO, GIOVANNI, called il MARESCALCO. — Painter from Vicenza, active chiefly in Venice, where he worked from 1495 to 1535.
The Pietà in Vicenza, which is his masterpiece, should be counted among his earliest works and shows the influence of Montagna and Antonello (v. Rome); later, under the influence of Giambellino’s painting, the incisive line that characterized his style gave way to a softer and richer coloristic handling. Thus in the fragment in the Academy of Venice with the heads of st. Cosma, Benedetto e Teola (1497), in the s. Caterina, and in the altarpiece of s. Rocco in the Gallery of Vicenza (1502). But he was unable to absorb the new direction of Venetian Quattrocento painting, as demonstrated by the Vergine and the Santi in the Cathedral of Montagnana, and by the two altarpieces of S. Giacomo dell’Orio and S. Spirito in Venice (1511), where the figures lose much of their original monumentality; this is even more pronounced in the altarpiece of S. Pietro di Montecchio Maggiore (1519), the last dated work of B.
