Domenico Morone ( 1442 – 1518) was an Italian painter from Verona, painting in an early Renaissance style. Much of his work has not survived, notably his fresco cycles.Lawrence Gowing, ed., Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists, v.3 (Facts on File, 2005): 472. He was considered by Vasari to be second only to Liberale da Verona among artists in his town. His son Francesco Morone was also a prominent Veronese painter. His pupils included Michele da Verona and Girolamo dai Libri. Among the first Renaissance exponents of the Veronese school of painting, he was born into a family from Morbegno that had settled on the banks of the Adige around 1425. He was probably a pupil of Francesco Benaglio, but he was also deeply influenced by other artists of the time, such as Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini, although little is known about his training and early years of activity.
He is believed to have started as a miniatore before moving on to painting and fresco production. His earliest known works date back to 1470, such as the four panels depicting Saint Francis, Saint Bernardino, Saint Bartholomew, and Saint Roch, originally part of a polyptych, and some frescoes now detached and preserved at the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona. Apart from the decoration of the organ shutters of the church of San Bernardino, no other works can be firmly dated to the 1480s, although it is almost certain that his workshop must have achieved a certain popularity in the city. In 1493 he signed one of his most famous works, canvas celebrating the Cacciata dei Bonacolsi (1494) (or Expulsion of the Bonacolsi in 1328, scene of Piazza Sordello, Mantua)', commissioned by the Duke of Mantua Francesco II Gonzaga, and now in the Ducal Palace of Mantua. Two small cassone panels depicting the Rape of Sabine women dated to c.1490 and attributed to Morone were bought by the National Gallery, London in 1886 and remain in its collections. From the following years, much of his production involved collaboration with his son Francesco, with whom in 1503 he completed what is considered his masterpiece: the cycle of frescoes for the Sagramoso Library in the San Bernardino convent in Verona.
Famous for the details of human figures, backgrounds, and objects, he used vibrant and luminous colors in his works, often with a rich color palette. It has been observed that the faces of his protagonists are generally sober and prosaic, unlike those of his son, described as "sweetened." In his later years, Domenico Morone became increasingly subdued and attentive to psychological subtleties, as clearly seen in his Madonna and Child painted in the 1510s. Likely a master to prominent artists, including Girolamo dai Libri, Paolo Morando and Michele da Verona (in addition to his already mentioned son Francesco), his last mention dates to 1517, and he presumably died shortly thereafter.
Biography Origins and family
Domenico Morone was born in Verona, a city where he spent most of his life. His father Agostino, originally from Morbegno (today in the province of Sondrio, Lombardy), had settled on the banks of the Adige around 1425 and worked as a "stropezzator" (leather worker) in the Braida district, as reported in a census of 1433. In 1436 he married Donna Maddalena, daughter of a certain Bertoldo, miller from Illasi, and widow of Nicolao de Alemanea. The couple moved to the San Vitale district, where Agostino is recorded in 1443 as "Agustinus pelacanus quidam Petri, per soldi 4".
The earliest mention of Domenico appears in a registry of the aforementioned district dating to 1455–1456, which recorded: «magister Augustinus pelacanuus ann. 50 - Domina Magdalena ejus uxor ann. 56 - Domincis ejus filius ann. 13 - Benvenuta ejus neptis ann. 17 - Libera filia suprascripti magistri Augustini ann. 9». According to this document, Domenico was likely born in 1442, which is the traditionally accepted date, although a 1461 document, where he is already registered as «pictor», suggests he might have been born a few years earlier, around 1438–1439. Little is known about his sister Libera, five years younger. The surname Morone was only established at the beginning of the following century, making it difficult to reconstruct more details about his family.
Around 1469, the young Domenico married Donna Cecilia, who bore him seven children: Chiara (born around 1469), Francesca and Francesco (around 1471), Gabriello (1472), Antonio (1474), Lodovico (1476), and Maria (1478). Of these children, as far as we know, only Francesco and Antonio followed in their father's footsteps and became painters, the former gaining some fame, while nothing is known of the latter.
The first known mention of Domenico Morone as a painter dates to March 28, 1461, when he was called to testify alongside Francesco Benaglio regarding a contract; his profession was again mentioned on June 20, 1466, in the will of stonemason Domenico di Bono. On January 28, 1469, before notaries Agostino Pindemonte and Cristoforo Avogaro, he emancipated from his father.
1470s and 1480s
Very little is known about Domenico's training and early production. According to Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects by Giorgio Vasari, he learned painting from some unspecified disciples of Stefano da Verona. He likely, as others of his time, started in adolescence as a miniatore; indeed, apart from this art form, the Veronese painting scene was quite limited from the death of Pisanello until Domenico began working on large-scale works.
It has been suggested that he studied under Francesco Benaglio due to certain stylistic similarities, particularly «in the fixed expression of figures, their slightly awkward proportions, the type of Child, and the way symbolic fruits are inserted, revealing dependence on the Paduan-Squarcionesque current». The similarity between the two artists was such that some Madonnas, now attributed to Benaglio, were in earlier times incorrectly associated with Domenico Morone. Finally, it has been suggested that around the age of twenty or thirty, he may have stayed in Mantua to continue his training, but there is no concrete evidence. According to Giuseppe Fiocco, he may have attended in Venice, probably alongside Giovanni Mansueti, the school of Gentile Bellini.
The first works securely attributed to Domenico Morone are dated 1470, a year in which historians identified three of his works. Among them, the first was a polyptych he created for the former church of San Clemente, from which four panels depicting Saint Francis, Saint Bernardino, Saint Bartholomew, and Saint Roch were later cut, now preserved at the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona; in them «the physiognomies certainly recall Benaglio, with a refinement he seems never to have known», making it «the most precise documentation of the evolutionary passage of language between Francesco Benaglio and Domenico Morone». Stylistically related for their «expressive tension and quality» are the frescoes with Madonna and Child with Saints Sebastian and Roch made for the Palazzo del Capitanio, and a Saint James the Greater between Saint Jerome and a Deacon Saint made for the Corpus Domini hospital, later incorporated into the city convent of Santa Maria following its demolition in 1508 for military reasons. Both works were detached in 1875 by Pietro Nanin and later placed in Castelvecchio.
In 1471 he worked on a fresco with the Madonna with Saints Christopher and Magdalene, almost entirely lost, for the façade of the house of Manfredo Giusti at present-day via Nicola Mazza 51, where he signed for the first time as «Dominici de Morocini». The following year, he appears in a registry as married to Cecilia and father of Clara and Francesca, aged 3 and 1 respectively.
In 1481 Morone was engaged to paint a Saint Francis and a Saint Bernardino for the shutters of the organ of the church of San Bernardino in Verona. The instrument, one of the oldest in Europe and characterized by great height and a slender line, was commissioned by the Rossi family. Two years later, on April 29, 1483, he signed and dated the panel Madonna and Child, preserved at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, whose style moves away from the Veronese context to embrace the Paduan-Venetian style.
Also from the 1480s seems to be the oil on canvas Madonna and Child with Saint Francis, on display at the Ca' d'Oro museum in Venice, where it was observed that the depiction of the Child «already anticipates the typical types of mature Domenico». No other major works by Morone from this decade are known, except for some minor works attributed to him or his workshop, such as the frescoes Episodes from the Life of Saint Valentine for the church dedicated to the saint in Bussolengo or the pulpit decoration of the San Bernardino convent, where he had already worked on the organ shutters.
Regarding his personal life, the registry documents indicate that he became a widower between 1481, the birth year of his last daughter with Cecilia, and 1491, when he is recorded as married a second time to Donna Caterina, aged 36, living with her in his paternal house in the San Vitale district, after a period spent in San Quirico with his first wife. He had no children with Caterina. On August 18, 1489, he appears in the wills of Valerio Tarundi and his wife, Maria Ormaneti, both linked to the Franciscan convent of San Fermo Maggiore, suggesting a connection of Morone to the order founded by Saint Francis.
1490s: Artistic Maturity
At the beginning of the 1490s, Domenico Morone had already achieved a certain reputation in his native city, although no works are known after the doors of San Bernardino of 1483. In 1491 he was engaged, together with painters Antonio Badile and Pietro Antonio di Paolo, to appraise the paintings executed by Jacopo di Antonio della Beverara on the façade of Lionello Sagramoso’s house, while the following year, on behalf of the Veronese community, he produced an expert opinion together with Liberale and Nicolò Giolfino regarding the statues by Alberto da Milano intended for the loggia of the Palazzo del Consiglio. This testified to the esteem Domenico had gained in his city; his workshop had become one of the most important in late 15th-century Verona: from it emerged several talented painters such as Girolamo dai Libri, Michele da Verona, Paolo Morando and, of course, his son Francesco.
In 1494 he received a prestigious commission from the Marquis of Mantua Francesco II Gonzaga: the canvas Expulsion of the Bonacolsi, which was thought to have been part of a painting cycle dedicated to the glories of the Gonzaga family. The subject of the work was the victorious battle that Ludovico I Gonzaga won on 16 August 1328 against Rinaldo dei Bonacolsi for the possession of Mantua. It has been observed that, with this work, Domenico Morone surpassed the graphic influence of Andrea Mantegna, opening himself from this point onwards to the Venetian currents of Carpaccio and Cima da Conegliano. The painting, exhibited in Mantua at the Ducal Palace since 1913, was also used as a model for the restoration of the 16th-century façade of the Palazzo del Capitano. Dating from around the same period as the Expulsion, or perhaps a few years earlier, were also two small cassone panels depicting the Rape of the Sabines, which since 1886 have been part of the collections of the National Gallery in London.