ZAVATTARI, FAMIGLIA. – Milanese painters. The documents attest to the activity in Milan of a CRISTOFORO, of a FRANCESCO, father of AMBROGIO and GREGORIO, and of a FRANCESCO II, a collaborator of Gregorio.
Cristoforo worked on the construction of that cathedral in 1404, Francesco in the two-year period 1416–17, and Ambrogio in the years 1456 and 1459. Subsequently, the Z. brothers executed frescoes, now vanished, in S. Vincenzo in Prato in Milan (1465), and in 1474 Gregorio frescoed the sanctuary of Corbetta. The most substantial source for knowledge of their style is the extensive fresco decoration of the walls in the chapel of Teodolinda, in Monza cathedral (1444), where the remnants of the flamboyant Gothic style are coupled with accents of a fresh Renaissance naturalism. Fourteenth-century architectural forms rise up against solid gold backgrounds. Although certain foreshortenings of horses recall the art of Pisanello, the predominant human types reveal a derivation
ZAVATTARI — JOURNAL FOR ASCETICISM AND MYSTICISM
by Michelino da Besozzo. The various episodes of the story narrated afforded the painters, presumed to have been Cristoforo and Francesco Z., the opportunity to celebrate the elegance of fifteenth-century costume in scenes of processions, hunts, banquets, and funerals. The influence of the Z. on contemporary Lombard illumination is noteworthy, as demonstrated chiefly by the tarot cards in the Milanese collection of Duke U. Visconti di Modrone, painted for Filippo Maria Visconti between 1428 and 1447 in memory of his marriage to Maria di Savoia.