GALATAS. — In recent decades, the figure of a 15th-century Ferrarese painter, GALATAS di Matteo Piva, has come to the fore, supplanting the highly uncertain G. Galassi mentioned by ancient biographers. Presumed pupil of Piero della Francesca and in contact, in Ferrara around 1450, with the Fleming Rogier van der Weyden, Piva
after working with other Este colorists in the villas of Belriguardo, Muggiaro, and Belfiore, is said to have moved to Bologna, where he executed important works in the churches of S. Domenico, S. Giovanni in Monte, and Mezzaratta. According to the chronicler Lama, he died there in 1488.
A group of three paintings, attributed by A. Venturi to this artist, exhibits a consistent hand and more than any other work of the Ferrarese school attests to the beneficial influence of Piero on those masters. These works include two gentle muses playing music, in the Budapest Museum, and the well-known Allegory of Autumn, in the Berlin Museum, which, for the solidity of its compositional structure, the spontaneous vital energy animating its protagonist, the admirable synthesis of the landscape, and the freshness of its chromatic tones—azure, olive-green, and deep purple—ranks among the most memorable geographical representations of the Renaissance, not only in Italy.