DAMIANO da BERGAMO. - In secular life Zambelli D., friar and inlayer, born at Bergamo between 1490 and 1500, died at Bologna on 30 Aug. 1549.
The choir stalls of the Bergamo church of S. Bartolomeo, originally in that of S. Domenico, are indicated as his youthful work. Their design is still distinctly fifteenth-century, enough to justify the belief that it goes back to Bramantino and Zenale. Having become a friar (1528), he worked in Bologna, in the church of the Dominicans, on the choir stalls and on several most beautiful inlays now in the sacristy of the Church. In 1546 he was in Genoa, where he executed three inlays for the Cathedral, one of which is signed and dated.
An artist greatly known and admired in his own day, he knew how to combine rare technical skill with a particular taste for the graduated chromatic harmonies produced in his inlays by the varying tones of the grain of the wood.