Marco Palmezzano

In 1506 Pope Julius II, the warrior pope who would soon set Michelangelo to work on the Sistine ceiling, passed through the small Romagna town of Forlì. Waiting for him on the cathedral's high altar was a new painting of the apostles receiving communion, by a local man named Marco Palmezzano. It was the proudest moment of a career spent almost entirely in one place.

Palmezzano had trained under Melozzo da Forlì, a master famed for daring perspective who had worked beside Piero della Francesca. He travelled to Rome and Venice as a young man, soaked up the calm Madonnas of Giovanni Bellini, then went home to Forlì and stayed.

For the next four decades his busy workshop turned out altarpieces across the region, most of them the same trusted composition, the enthroned Virgin and Child among saints, in clear firm colour under wide skies. He kept working in that steady manner until his death in 1539, long after the art of the big cities had moved on without him.