Sebastiano del Piombo

Sebastiano came to Rome from Venice around 1511 carrying something the Romans lacked, the rich glowing colour of Giorgione and Titian, in whose circle he had trained. Michelangelo, hunting for a painter to set against the wildly popular Raphael, took him up, and the two became allies in the great artistic rivalry of the age.

The partnership produced Sebastiano's masterpiece, the Raising of Lazarus, painted about 1519 as a direct challenge to a Raphael altarpiece, reportedly with Michelangelo helping design the figures. Sebastiano supplied the deep Venetian tone, Michelangelo the muscular bodies.

His nickname came late. In 1531 the pope handed him the well-paid office of keeper of the lead seal, the piombo, that stamped papal documents. The job was so comfortable that he more or less stopped painting, to Michelangelo's disgust. He was also a searching portraitist, and among his sitters were Pope Clement VII and the poet Vittoria Colonna, a close friend of Michelangelo.