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Girolamo Muziano (1528-1592), Italian Renaissance painter born at Acquafredda, near Brescia.
He began work under the tutelage of Romanino, an imitator of the VenetianTitian. He left Brescia as a young man, and moved to Rome about 1550. There his pictures soon gained for him the surname of Il Giovano de paesi (the young man of the landscapes). A focus on landscape painting was not common to Italian painters of his generation, and would not become more prominent until the arrival of Annibale Carracci and his pupil Domenichino.
He painted historical painting in the Mannerist style of Michelangelo, giving great prominence to the anatomy of his figures, and became fond of painting persons emaciated by abstinence or even disease. His picture of the Resurrection of Lazarus (1555) established his fame. Michelangelo pronounced its author one of the "first artists of that age". It was placed in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, but was afterwards transferred to the Quirinal Palace, and now is in the Vatican Pinacoteca*. The painting suffers from overcrowding and a visual cacophony of posing.
Muziano, with dogged perseverance (at one time he shaved his head, so as not to be tempted to go out of doors), continued to proceed in the path on which he had entered. He grew excellent in depicting foreign and military costumes, and in introducing landscape into his historical pieces after the manner of Titian. Mosaic working also occupied his attention while he was employed a superintendent at the Vatican. His ability and industry earned him a handsome fortune. Pope Gregory XIII directed him to found the Academy of St Luke (Accademia di San Luca)(painter's guild) in Rome (1577). He died in 1592, and was buried in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore.
Many of Muziano's works are in the churches and palaces of Rome, as well as in Orvieto and Loreto. His landscape frescoes for Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este's villas in Rome and Tivoli have since disappeared. In Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome, is one of his chief works, St Jerome preaching to Monks in the Desert; his Circumcision is in the church of the Gesu, his Ascension in the Araceli, and his St Francis receiving the Stigmata in the church of the Conception. A picture by him, representing Christ washing the feet of His disciples, is in the cathedral of Rheims.
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"Girolamo Muziano"