Giovanni Zebellana

On 19 April 1499 a woodcarver in Verona finished a seated Madonna and wrote a few lines inside the panel that closes the back of her throne. He called himself Zuane intaliador, of the San Marco district of Verona. Zuane is the Venetian form of Giovanni, and intaliador means carver. That July a painter, Leonardo Attavanti, coloured and gilded the figure and left his own note on a scrap of parchment in a hidden drawer in its base. The statue is now in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.

The carver was Giovanni Zebellana, born around 1457 and dead by about 1504. Statues like this one were made by two trades, one cutting the wood and one painting it. Most Veronese wood carving of the time is anonymous, which is why his work has had to be rebuilt by scholars from documents and comparisons. The Castelvecchio museum now calls him the most interesting wood sculptor working in the city at the end of the 15th century.