DIANA, BENEDETTO RUSCONI, known as il. — Painter, born in Venice around 1460, died there in 1525. In 1515, in collaboration with Lazzaro Bastiani, he executed some standards for S. Marco.
His signed works are a Sacra conversazione in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice, an'Assunta in S. Maria della Croce near Crema, and a Salvatore in the Galleria Corsini in Rome. On the basis of these paintings, others have been attributed to him in Italian and foreign collections. Although he lived in an environment dominated by the major personalities from Carpaccio to Giovanni Bellini, D. nevertheless developed individual stylistic characteristics in his pursuit of powerful relief effects through profoundly incisive drawing enhanced by intense colors.
BIBL.: Hadelin, s. V. in Thieme-Becker, IX, pp. 204-205; A. Morassi, s. V. ENOCH. Ital., XII (1931), p. 744. Emilio Lavagnino