Stefano da Ferrara was an Italian painter from

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

who active in the latter half of the 15th century.

Biography

The dates of his birth and death are uncertain. He traveled to

Treviso Treviso ( ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 87.322 inhabitants (as of December 2024). Some 3,000 live within the Venetian wall ...

with his brother around 1339, later moving on to Padua, where his ''Madonna del Pilastro'' is located in the

Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua The Pontifical Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua () is a Catholic Church, Catholic church and Basilicas in the Catholic Church, minor basilica in Padua, Veneto, Northern Italy, dedicated to Anthony of Padua, St. Anthony of Padua. Although the ...

. It is in the style of the Byzantine icons of

Eleousa The Eleusa (or ''Eleousa''; – ''tenderness'' or ''showing mercy'') is a type of depiction of the Virgin Mary in icons in which the Christ Child is nestled against her cheek. In the Western Church the type is often known as the Virgin of Tende ...

, mother of Mercy. Additional frescoes in the Chapel of the Ark were lost due to neglect and humidity, and destroyed in 1500 during the renovation of the building by Andrea Briosco. He is described by

Vasari Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance painter, architect, art historian, and biographer who is best known for his work '' Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'', considered the ide ...

as having been the friend of Mantegna. In the

Pinacoteca di Brera The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, an outgrowth of the cultural program of ...

are two ''Madonnas with Saints'' that are assigned to him; in

San Giovanni in Monte San Giovanni in Monte is a 15th-century Roman Catholic church in Bologna, Italy. History The current church can be traced back to a round church from the 5th century known as the Monte Oliveto, traditionally said to be founded by Saint Petronius ...

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

is a ''Madonna and Child, with two Angels'' considered to be by this artist. he worked on the frescoes in the

Palazzo della Ragione, Padua The Palazzo della Ragione is a medieval market hall, town hall and palace of justice building in Padua, in the Veneto region of Italy. The upper floor was dedicated to the town and justice administration; while the ground floor still hosts the hi ...

. Recent studies have identified Stefano Di Benedetto as Stefano da Ferrara. In these studies, the art historian

Miklós Boskovits Miklós Boskovits (1935 – 2011) was a Hungarian art historian who specialized in Italian renaissance art (and earlier). Boskovits was born in Budapest. He wrote the Italian art catalogs for the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (written between 1977 a ...

has plausibly attributed the frescos of casa Minerbi - Del Sale to Stefano di Benedetto da Ferrara (not to be confused with his Quattrocento homonym).An. Dunlop, ''Painted Palace. The rise of secular art in early Renaissance Italy'', 2009, p. 93

Footnotes

References

* * Miklós Boskovits, ''Per Stefano da Ferrara, pittore trecentesco'', in ''Hommage à Michel Laclotte: études sur la peinture du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance'', Milano - Electa; Paris - Réunion des Musées Nationaux, pp. 56–67, 1994, *

Anne Dunlop Anne Elizabeth Dunlop is a Canadian-born art historian. As of 2022 she is Herald Chair of Fine Art at the University of Melbourne. Education Dunlop graduated with a BA from Queen's University at Kingston in Canada. She next completed an MA ...

, ''Painted Palace. The rice of secular art in early Renaissance Italy'', The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009, pp. 91–109.

External links

Anne Dunlop, ''Allegory, Painting, and Petrarch'' in ''Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry'', 2008
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferrara, Stefano da Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 14th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Trecento painters Painters from Ferrara