Marcello Venusti

Marcello Venusti, Holy Family, oil on wood, 43.2 x 28.6 cm, c. 1565. National Gallery, London

Marcello Venusti (1512/5 – 15 October 1579) was an Italian Mannerist painter active in Rome in mid 16th century.

Native to Mazzo di Valtellina near Como, he was reputed to have been a pupil of Perino del Vaga. He is known for a scaled copy of the Michelangelo's Last Judgement, commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and completed in the master's lifetime and meeting his approval. His painting of Christ in the Garden is in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj. Buonarroti engaged him to paint an Annunciation from his design for the Capella de' Cesi in the church of Santa Maria della Pace. The copy of the Last Judgment is now at Naples. In the Palazzo Borghese there is a Christ bearing His Cross by him, from a design by Michelangelo. A Prayer on the Mount of Olives is in Sant' Ignazio at Viterbo, and a Holy Family and a Christ expelling the Money-Changers in the National Gallery in London. Alnwick Castle in Northumberland also displays a Holy Family. There is also a Christ in Purgatory in Palazzo Colonna in Rome.

Works

• Christ in the Garden, Galleria Doria Pamphilj
• Portrait of Michelangelo (about 1535), oil on canvas (36 x 27 cm), Casa Buonarotti, Florence
• Frescoes of the Chapel of the Rosary, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome
• Frescoes at the San Giovanni Battista chapel, Santa Caterina dei Funari
• The Holy Family, Alnwick Castle

References

• Freedberg, Sydney J. (1993). Pelican History of Art (ed.). Painting in Italy, 1500-1600. p. 485 Penguin Books Ltd.
• Bryan, Michael (1889). Walter Armstrong & Robert Edmund Graves (ed.). Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (Volume II: L-Z). York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007: George Bell and Sons. p. 652.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)

External links

• The engravings of Giorgio Ghisi, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Marcello Venusti (see index)