Michael Ongaro, called Pannonio

MICHAEL ONGARO, called Pannonio. - Ferrarese painter, so called perhaps from his place of origin, d. before July 1464.

There is a payment from 1415 for the painting of a banner for the church of S. Michele degli Unii; in 1427 he wove another banner with daisies and diamonds. There is also knowledge of six angels worked in wax, cast in brass in collaboration with Niccolò Baroncelli and given to be gilded in 1446; of the decoration of the wooden housing for the altarpiece of the ducal Chapel in 1448; of frescoes executed (1450) in the vault of the sacristy of the cathedral of Ferrara with the Eternal surrounded by Sts. Peter and Paul and Cherubim, in the Torre delle ore in the Castle (1452) with St. Dominic, St. Thomas and St. Peter Martyr, and on the Porta del Leone with the portrait of Lionello d'Este. From 1454 court painter, he executed other decorative works, such as a curtain of 1460, with the Creation of Adam and Eve, and it is probable that from 1458 he collaborated with Tura on the decoration of the studio of Belfiore. A fixed point of his activity remains the allegory of Summer in the Museum of Budapest, in which the master's richness of color and his decorative skill are displayed, in a moving idealization of virginal beauty. Besides the Ceres of Budapest, there should be attributed to the master, according to Berenson, the St. Bernardino and the St. Louis of the Pinacoteca of Ferrara, a St. Anthony in a private collection in Milan, the Marriage of the Virgin and the Adoration of the Magi of the Chatman collection.

Eugenio Battisti

610-42; R. Janin, Michel le Syncelle, in DThC, X, coll. 1710-1711 with the indication of the writings; Krumbacher, p. 166 f., 186 f.; BHG, nn. 1286-87.

Emmanuele Candal