Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis (c. 1455 – c. 1508) was an Italian

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

painter, illuminator and designer of coins active in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

. Ambrogio gained a reputation as a portraitist, including as a painter of miniatures, at the court of Ludovico Sforza.Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis
at the National Gallery of Art

Life

Ambrogio de Predis was born in a family of artists from Lombardy. His brothers and half-brothers including Evangelista, Bernardino and Cristoforo were also painters. Little is known about his training. He initially worked as an illuminator in collaboration with his half-brother Cristoforo. He produced seven miniatures for a

Book of Hours The book of hours is a Christian devotional book used to pray the canonical hours. The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscrip ...

in 1472 (the work no longer exists) and again for a Book of Hours in 1474. He then worked on designs for the local mint in Milan along with his brother Bernardino. He subsequently worked for the court of the Sforzas for a number of years, mainly as a portrait painter. It is during this time that he offered hospitality to

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially re ...

when he arrived in Milan. Ambrogio de Predis - Bianca Maria Sforza - Google Art Project

A marriage was arranged between

Emperor Maximilian I Maximilian I (22 March 1459 – 12 January 1519) was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1508 until his death. He was never crowned by the pope, as the journey to Rome was blocked by the Venetians. He proclaimed himself E ...

and

Bianca Maria Sforza Bianca Maria Sforza (5 April 1472 – 31 December 1510) was Queen of Germany and Italy, and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire as the third spouse of Maximilian I. She was the eldest legitimate daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan ...

, niece of

Ludovico il Moro Ludovico Maria Sforza (; 27 July 1452 – 27 May 1508), also known as Ludovico il Moro (; "the Moor"). "Arbiter of Italy", according to the expression used by Guicciardini,

, but before the former would commit to the arrangement, he requested a portrait of his proposed bride. The portrait of Bianca Maria was painted by Ambrogio, who followed her to Innsbruck after the wedding in 1493, and there he worked for several years in the lady's service before returning to Milan, where he designed coins for the mint, designed and supervised

tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...

works, and prepared stage scenery. In 1502 he produced his only surviving signed and dated work, a portrait of the Emperor Maximilian. Much of Ambrogio de Predis's artistic output remains in dispute.

Work

He and his brother Evangelista are known to have collaborated with

on the painting of the ''

Virgin of the Rocks The ''Virgin of the Rocks'' ( it, Vergine delle rocce), sometimes the ''Madonna of the Rocks'', is the name of two paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, with a composition which is identical except fo ...

'' for the altarpiece in the chapel of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception at the Church of San Francesco Grande, Milan. Leonardo painted the central panel with the Virgin of the Rocks (National Gallery, London), while the two brothers created the side panels. The side panels for the ''Virgin of the Rocks'', now in the

National Gallery, London The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

were stated by the brothers to have been painted by them during the legal dispute over the altarpiece, and this is accepted by art historians.National Gallery Catalogues: Catalogue of the Earlier Italian Schools, Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues, London 1961, reprinted 1986,

Cultural references

In Canto XLV of

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works includ ...

's ''

The Cantos ''The Cantos'' by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a ''canto''. Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date ...

'', Pound denounces

usury Usury () is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is ch ...

and tells what usury contradicts and what can be accomplished without it by juxtaposing historical figures of the

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...

movement and the

: "Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis, came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit." File:Ambrogio de Predis - Ritratto di una dama.jpg, Portrait of a Lady (sitter's identity not established, possibly

Beatrice d'Este Beatrice d'Este (29 June 1475 – 3 January 1497), was Duchess of Bari and Milan by marriage to Ludovico Sforza (known as "il Moro"). She was one of the most important personalities of the time and, despite her short life, she was a major pla ...

) File:Ambrogio de Predis (workshop) - Bianca Maria Sforza (Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien).jpg, Empress Bianca Maria (1493) File:Marco d'Oggiono - The Archinto Portrait (National Gallery, London).jpg, The Archinto Portrait (National Gallery, London), 1494 File:Leonardesco, forse ambrogio de predis, angelo di dx della vergine delle rocce di londra.jpg, Angel playing lute File:Marco d'Oggiono - Portrait of a Youth as Saint Sebastian - 1986.9 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tiff, Alleged portrait of Gian Galeazzo Maria Sforza as Saint Sebastian File:Ambrogio de Predis - Portrait of a Young Man - WGA18377.jpg, Portrait of a Young Man, circa 1500 File:Ambrogio de Predis - Maximilian I Holy Roman Emperor.jpg, Emperor Maximilian I (1502)

References

External links

Getty Museum Biography''Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman''
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on de Predis (see index)
Painters of reality: the legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on de Predis (see index) {{DEFAULTSORT:Predis, Giovanni Ambrogio De 1450s births 1500s deaths 15th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 16th-century Italian painters Italian Renaissance painters Painters from Milan Tapestry artists Italian textile artists