Butinone, Bernardino

BUTINONE, BERNARDINO. - Painter, b. at Treviglio (Milan) before 1463; notices up to 1507.

He is one of the major representatives, along with Zenale and after Foppa, of pre-Leonardesque Lombard painting, known above all for the triptych (Madonna Enthroned with Saints), signed and dated 1484, in the Brera Gallery (Milan). The "Gualino" Triptych, formerly at Cereseto Monferrato, is probably his first work. Other works, earlier than the Brera altarpiece, are: the Resurrection and the Deposition from the Morbio Collection in Milan, the Adoration of the Magi formerly in Paris, the Nativity in London, the Circumcision in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, the Marriage at Cana from the Borromeo collection in Milan, which demonstrate how this painter, starting from an initially empirical Mantegnesque manner, onto which individual accents are grafted, moves on to modes derived from Foppa. Subsequently B., who reveals himself in substance to be an eclectic, also welcomes Flemish influences (Nativity in the Malaspina gallery, Pavia), Ferrarese influences (Madonna, in the Isola Bella), and Bramantesque ones, transmitted to him by Zenale, with whom he executed the frescoes of S. Pietro in Gessate in Milan (now half-destroyed) and the grandiose altarpiece of S. Martino in Treviglio, later than 1493, a genuine expression of Lombard decorative luxury.

Amalia Mezzetti