GAROFALO, BENVENUTO TISI called il. — Painter, born probably at Ferrara in 1481, died there on 6 July 1559. He was called il G. after his father’s Polesine homeland. At first a pupil of the Ferrarese Domenico Panetti, he later joined Boccaccino in Cremona; but, for a considerable period, he followed the example of Lorenzo Costa, as is attested, among other things, by the small youthful Presepe in the Pinacoteca of Ferrara, exquisitely ingenuous. He then came into direct contact with Giorgione, but was also influenced by his fellow townsman Dosso Dossi and by Raffaello and the Roman school in general, incorporating into his figurative repertoire, spontaneously inclined toward affable idyll and realistic observations, learned archaeological schemes and
academic frigidity, of which the Deposizione (1527) in the Pinacoteca di Brera is a typical example.
For several decades G. alternated happy moments with periods of mere convention, without further development, until he came to appear a belated, provincial, and isolated artist. He nevertheless attained a distinct degree of elegance and expressive nobility, along with assured compositional expertise and a polished palette.
In 1550 he became completely blind. G. left a vast number of works, among which stand out the altarpieces in the Pinacoteca of Ferrara (the Modonne dette delle Nubi [1514], del Pilastro e del Riposo, la Strage degli innocenti [1519], la Resurrezione di Lazzarro, l'Adorazione dei Mogi [1537]); the Mantegnesque ceilings in the Ferrarese Costabili and Seminary Palaces (1519); the imposing, almost Veronese Modonne in trono [1533] in the Galleria Estense of Modena; the Sacre conversazioni in the Roman Doria, Capitoline, and Borghese Galleries and in the Museo civico of Padua; and a group of mythological subjects in the Dresden Gallery, among which particularly notable, for its restrained and serene humanistic spirit, is the Triunfo di Bosco, painted late in his career.