Macrino d'Alba

Macrino d'Alba left an unusually clear trail for a painter of his time, because he signed and dated his pictures. His real name was Gian Giacomo de Alladio, the son of a notary in Alba, and Macrino was a nickname, usually explained by his thin build. His earliest signed and dated work is a triptych of 1495, now in Turin's Palazzo Madama, and of his end we know only that he had died before 1528.

Around 1490 he seems to have been in Rome, studying the painters at work there, Perugino and Pinturicchio above all, and he brought that Central Italian manner back to Piedmont, where it was still unusual. His most important patrons were the Paleologi, the marquises of Montferrat, whose small state included Alba. In 1503 he painted an altarpiece for the sanctuary of Crea in the Monferrato hills, and small portraits of Marquis William IX and his wife, Anne of Alençon, which are still kept there.