Andrea Piccinelli, called Il Brescianino
Republic of Siena · Renaissance
The story
In the 17th century the Borghese family hung a tall panel of Venus with two Cupids in a room of their villa given over to the goddess, facing a Venus by the German painter Lucas Cranach. They believed it was by Andrea del Sarto, the Florentine master. Only in 1911 did the scholar Gustavo Frizzoni give it to its real author, Andrea Piccinelli, called Il Brescianino.
His working life belongs to Siena, where he is recorded from about 1507. He was the son of a dancing master, trained with a local painter, Giovanni Battista Giusi, and often worked with his brother Raffaello. The painters he absorbed were the great names of Florence, Leonardo, Raphael, Fra Bartolomeo and del Sarto himself, which is how the Borghese Venus could pass for a Florentine picture. In 1525 he enrolled in the painters' guild in Florence, and no firm date survives for his death.
