Andrea Previtali

Andrea Previtali liked to sign his paintings 'pupil of Giovanni Bellini' — a small boast that tells you where he learned his trade. He came from Bergamo, a hill town on the Venetian mainland, and went down to Venice as a young man to train in Bellini's workshop, the busiest studio in the city and the one that taught half a generation of Venetian painters.

Around 1512 he carried that Venetian manner back home. Bergamo was booming just then. Its merchant families wanted altarpieces and portraits, and painters from the lagoon came inland to supply them. Previtali gave them soft, clear Madonnas and quiet devotional panels in Bellini's key, and for a while he was the leading local name.

Then Lorenzo Lotto, a stranger and more inventive painter, settled in Bergamo, and Previtali's steady manner began to look old-fashioned beside him. He kept working to the end, dividing his time between church commissions and small private pictures. He died in Bergamo in 1528.