Solario, Antonio detto Lo Zingaro

SOLARIO, ANTONIO detto lo ZINGARO. - Painter, active in the last decade of the 1400s and the first years of the 1500s. In his works he blends Venetian, Umbrian, Marche and Lombard elements, while always remaining faithful to his initial, predominantly Venetian training.

The frescoes with the Stories of St. Benedict in the cloister of SS. Severino and Sossio in Naples (c. 1495) are a collaborative work; they predate the period he spent in the Marche, where the painter left the fresco in S. Esuperanzio at Cingoli, the altarpiece in S. Francesco at Osimo (1503), and the altarpiece of the church of the Carmine at Fermo; the latter is not untouched by Umbrian influences either, which become more explicit in the Madonna della misericordia, in the church of the same name at Macerata, and in the Saints of London. Nevertheless, Venetian reminiscences of Vicenza, from Montagna and from Fogolino, and echoes of Alvise Vivarini always predominate: thus in the Madonna with Child and Adorer in Naples, and from Bellini in the Wertheimer Madonna formerly in Leningrad, of a softer and more blended color. Signed and dated 1508 is the Head of St. John in the Ambrosiana in Milan, akin to Andrea S., of a minute and refined Lombard technique, which is found again in other works such as the Holy Family in Amsterdam and the Salome of the Doria Gallery in Rome of 1511. - See pl. LIX.

Luisa Mortari