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for Antonio Cicognara
Antonio Cicognara
Italian, 15th century
(not assigned)Cremona, Italy, Europe
BiographyItalian painter and illuminator. A Virgin and Child (Ferrara, Pin. N.), signed and dated Antonii Cicognarii Pictura anno domini 1480, shows him to have been an extremely feeble painter at that date. Longhi (1934) and Ruhmer (1957) proposed that Cicognara had played a substantial role in the decoration of the Salone dei Mesi in Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara, 11 years earlier, but this thesis seems unlikely and has not been generally accepted. His earliest certain work is as a miniaturist in Cremona, where he illuminated two Antiphonaries and a Psalter for the cathedral between 1482 and 1483. The miniature of Isaiah on fol. 3r of the Psalter (Cremona Cathedral, Cod. IV) is signed and dated 1483. He is also documented in Cremona on 17 December 1486 and 31 May 1487, painting in S Rocco and in the Ospedale della Pietà. In 1490 he signed and dated a Virgin and Child with St Catherine of Alexandria and a Female Saint (ex-Cologna and Speroni priv. col., Milan); in 1493 he signed and dated a St Hyacinth (destr.) painted on a pilaster in S Pantaleone, Cremona (Zaist, 1774). He was last recorded in Lodi in August 1500 with Jacopo de’ Motti evaluating work by Ambrogio Bergognone in the sanctuary of the Incoronata.Other paintings attributed to Cicognara include St Catherine with an Adoring Nun (Bergamo, Gal. Accad. Carrara) and the Adoration of the Child with Two Angels (Cremona, Pal. Com.). The attribution of six cards from the Visconti–Sforza tarot pack (New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib.; Bergamo, Gal. Accad. Carrara) is based primarily on faked documentary evidence (Novati, 1880, 1908; Gualazzini, 1931; Dummett, 1976).
Kristen Lippincott. "Cicognara, Antonio." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T017745 (accessed April 10, 2012)
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