ZAVATTARI, FAMIGLIA

ZAVATTARI, FAMILY. - Milanese painters. Documents inform us of the activity, in Milan, of a CRISTOFORO, a FRANCESCO, father of AMBROGIO and GREGORIO, and a FRANCESCO II, collaborator of Gregorio.

For the construction of that Duomo, Cristoforo worked in 1404, Francesco in the two-year period 1416–17, and Ambrogio in the years 1456 and 1459. Subsequently, the Zavattari brothers executed frescoes, now lost, 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 wall fresco decoration in the chapel of Teodolinda, in the Monza cathedral (1444), where the remnants of late Gothic floral motifs are coupled with accents of Renaissance naturalism. On compact gold grounds, trecento-style architectures adhere. Although certain perspectives of horses recall the art of Pisanello, the prevailing human typologies denote a derivation

from Michelino da Besozzo. The various episodes of the narrative offered the painters—supposed to be Cristoforo and Francesco Zavattari—the opportunity to celebrate the elegance of fourteenth-century costume in scenes of processions, hunts, banquets, and funerals. Notable is the influence of the Zavattaris on contemporary Lombard illumination, as demonstrated principally 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 of Savoy. V. S. V. BIBLICA.: L. Beltrami. La cappella della Regina Teodolinda, Milan 1891; F. Malaguzzi Valeri. Pittori lombardi, ibid. 1902, pp. 90 ff., 202, 217; Venturi, VII, 1, IV; P. Toesca. La pittura e la miniatura nella Lombardia, Milan 1912, pp. 492 ff., 513 ff., 522 ff.; R. Van Marle. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, VII, The Hague 1926, ch. IX, ibid. 1927; P. Arrigoni, s.V. in Thieme-Becker, XXXVI, p. 420. Alberto Neppi