MORONE, DOMENICO. - Painter, b. in Verona ca. 1442, d. there after 1517.
His earliest dated work is the Madonna in the Berlin Museum (1484), which must be preceded by the Madonnas in the Musée André in Paris, the National Gallery in Washington, and the Galleria Tadini in Lovere; all works which, together with some hint of Ferrarese influence, show strong Paduan characteristics. Those characteristics appear softened 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 Palazzo Ducale in Mantua; in this work of his the influence of Gentile Bellini is evident. A whole group of small panels with stories of St. Thomas, St. Vincent Ferrer and other saints, scattered among various collections in Europe and America, preludes 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 is episodic, and the artist in his subsequent works returns to his youthful manner; the frescoes of the Library of S. Bernardino in Verona and those of the Paladon, now in the Museo di Verona (1502) in fact repeat his Mantuan origins.
His son FRANCESCO (b. in Verona ca. 1471, d. 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 St. John in S. Bernardino in Verona (1498) to the altarpiece of the parish church of Soave (1529) his dated paintings are numerous, without which it would be difficult to follow the uniform unfolding of his activity. In his many works, all executed for Verona and the neighbouring towns (among the principal ones the altarpiece of S. Maria in Organo, of 1503; the frescoes in the sacristy of the same church, and those in S. Anastasia and in S. Fermo; the altarpiece of Brera, of 1502, and the small altarpiece of the Galleria Carrara in Bergamo, of 1520, etc.) he always remains faithful to the manner learned from his father, softening it according to his temperament with a sense of austere poetry; except at certain times when his assent to the inevitable Venetian influences is more evident (Samson and Delilah of the Poldi Pezzoli in Milan).
Bibliography2 works
Emma Zocca