Girolamo da Carpi

Girolamo da Carpi ran two careers at once. In Ferrara he was a painter for the Este dukes, the family who ruled the city, turning out altarpieces and sharp, elegant portraits that borrowed the polish of Parmigianino, a Mannerist he openly admired. Alongside that he worked as an architect with a keen eye for antiquity.

That second gift took him to Rome. In 1549 Cardinal Ippolito d'Este called him south to help dig at Hadrian's Villa, the vast ruined estate of a Roman emperor near Tivoli, and to lay out the gardens of a palace on the Quirinal Hill. The next year Pope Julius the Third made him his architect, and Girolamo oversaw work on the Vatican's Belvedere court.

Then he went home to Ferrara and turned to the dukes' own fortress, the Castello Estense, enlarging the great brick castle at the centre of town. He died there in 1556, as well known in his own day for the buildings and ruins he handled as for the pictures he painted.