MELOZZO DA FORLÌ

Image from page 396
Image from page 396
MELOZZO da FORLÌ - Pittore, n. a Forlì l'8 giugno 1438, da Giuliano di Melozzo degli Ambrogi, m. ivi l'8 nov. 1494.
MELOZZO da FORLÌ - Pittore, n. a Forlì l'8 giugno 1438, da Giuliano di Melozzo degli Ambrogi, m. ivi l'8 nov. 1494.

Around 1460 he is believed to have painted the fresco known as *Il pestapepe* on the façade of a pharmacy in the city, later transferred to canvas in the last century and now visible in the Pinacoteca of Forlì. About six years later, M. must have been in Urbino, where he refined his skills under Piero della Francesca, particularly in the science of perspective, leaving there a static *Blessing Christ* in tempera, now in that Gallery.

Approximately from that period date the two mutilated panels in the Uffizi in Florence, depicting the Archangel Gabriel and the Annunciate on one side, and Saints Prosodicus and John the Baptist on the other. Around 1470 M. was in Rome and executed, besides a fresco of the Annunciation in the Pantheon, for the church of S. Marco the images of St Mark the Evangelist and St Mark Pope.

Mostly to his mature period belong the winged and graceful figures of adolescent angels, with the symbols of Redemption, set against the segments of the coffered ceiling of the Pauline chapel: a progeny of most human creatures, yet free from any profane dross, the only ones, perhaps, in the history of sacred art, worthy to be placed ideally beside those of the Blessed Angelico. — *See* pl. XXXIX.

BIBL.: A. Schmarosv, *M. da F.*, Belluno 1886; O. Okkonen, *M. da F. und seine Schule*, Helsingfors 1910; C. Ricci, *M. da F.*, Rome 1911; G. Grona, s.V. in Thieme-Becker, XXIV, pp. 379-72; L. Venturi, *Contributi a M. da F.*, in *L’arte*, 1 (1930), pp. 289-99; id., *Arte italiana in America*, Milan 1933, V. index; R. Buscaroli, *La pittura romagnola del Quattrocento*, Faenza 1936, pp. 89-175; id., *M. da F.*, Rome 1938; B. Berenson, *Pitture italiane del Rinascimento*, Milan 1936, p. 308; F. Lanyi, *Un autoritratto di M. da F.*, in *Critica d’arte*, 3 (1938), pp. 97-103; L. Coletti, *Lotto e M.*, in *Le arti*, 1 (1939), pp. 248-57.

Alberto Neppi