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Palma il Giovane

Prolific great-nephew of Palma il Vecchio

Fresco in the Scuola di S. Giovanni Evangelistra

Mannerist Jacopo Negretti II (1544–1628), better known as Palma il Giovane 'Palma the Younger', was the most prolific painter of his day in Venice; the great-nephew of Palma Vecchio, specializing in large but usually vapid narrative paintings that were extremely popular in their day.

Palma Giovane's career peaked just as those of so many of the Venetian great Renaissance masters were ending. He reputedly finished Titian's last great work, the Pietà; he painted three large scenes in the Palazzo Ducale after the great fire in 1577, where he met Tintoretto and Veronese, both of whom would influence his style. After Tintoretto's death in 1594, he was the most sought after painter in Venice, with a vast workshop, earning commissions from around Europe.

Every church in Venice seems to have at least one work by him or more often by his workshop; some of his best paintings are in the Oratorio dei Crociferi; in the sacristies of San Giacomo dall'Orio and of the Gesuiti, and in the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista, San Moisè, San Simone Profeta and Fondazione Querini-Stampalia.

High Renaissance

Artists

Text © Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls

Image by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, Creative Commons