MORONE, DOMENICO. — Painter, born in Verona ca. 1442, died there after 1517.
His earliest dated work is the Madonna in the Berlin Museum (1484), which must have been preceded by the Madonnas in the André Museum in Paris, the National Gallery in Washington, and the Tadini Gallery in Lovere; all these works, together with some hint of Ferrarese influence, display vivid Paduan characteristics. Those characteristics appear attenuated ten years later, in the large canvas depicting the Gonzaga driving the Bonacolsi from Mantua, commissioned from him by Francesco Gonzaga and now in the Ducal Palace of Mantua; in this work the influence of Gentile Bellini is evident. A whole group of small panels with scenes from the lives of s. Thomas, s. Vincent Ferrer, and other saints, scattered among various collections in Europe and America, foreshadows this happy period, to which also belong two fragments of a cassone with tournament scenes, now in the National Gallery in London. But that influence was episodic, and in his later works the artist returned to his youthful manner; the frescoes in the Libreria of S. Bernardino in Verona and those of the Paladon, now in the Museum of Verona (1502), in fact repeat his Mantuan origins.
His son FRANCESCO (born in Verona ca. 1471, died there on 16 May 1529) collaborated with him as early as 1496, in the painting for the church of Romarolo. From the solemn Crucifix between the Virgin and s. John in S. Bernardino in Verona (1498) to the altarpiece of the parish church of Soave (1529), numerous dated paintings by him survive, without which it would be difficult to follow the consistent development of his activity. In his many works, all executed for Verona and the surrounding towns (among the principal ones, the altarpiece of S. Maria in Organo, from 1503; the frescoes in the sacristy of the same church, and those in S. Anastasia and S. Fermo; the Brera altarpiece, from 1502, and the small altarpiece in the Carrara Gallery in Bergamo, from 1520, etc.), he always remained faithful to the manner learned from his father, softening it in accordance with his temperament through a sense of austere poetry; except on certain occasions when his acceptance of the inevitable Venetian influences is more apparent (Samson and Delilah in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan).