PELLIPARIO, Nicola. — Painter of maiolica, born in Castelduartane (Urbania) no later than 1480, died before 1547.
After working in his native city and in Fabriano, he moved between 1515 and 1520 to Urbino, where, together with his sons, he founded the famous Fontana workshop. Pellipario’s art, perhaps the greatest of the masters of the so-called “beautiful style,” is distinguished by fluid and elegant drawing, harmonious colors, and a taste for landscape. In his varied subjects, he freely drew inspiration from Italian and German woodcuts and engravings; only in his mature period, when he shifted from a preference for light colors tied to a dominant bluish hue to richer tones with a prevalence of yellow-orange, did he tend to copy Marcantonio’s prints faithfully. Pellipario is also credited with formulating some typical ornamental motifs of the school of Urbino. Among the many services he executed and which are now scattered across various museums, the one at the Museo Correr in Venice (c. 1515; other pieces in Oxford and Amsterdam) and the later one for Isabella d’Este Gonzaga (20 pieces in Bologna, London, and elsewhere) stand out. Also noteworthy are: the Piatto dell’Imperatore in Leningrad (1521), the dish with the Martyrdom of St. Catherine in the National Museum of Florence, a Presentation in the Temple, glazed by Maestro Giorgio, in the Museum of Bologna, and numerous other plates and amorini at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, as well as in Milan, Pesaro, and elsewhere.
Pellico, Silvio — Portrait. Lithograph by S. Gallina from a drawing of the same (1842) — Rome, Museo del Risorgimento.
PSEUDO PELLIPARIO is the conventional name given to an unknown artist whose style is very close to that of Pellipario and who is often confused with him.