FELTRE, MORTO DA

This article appears in Volume V10, Page 247 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: FAT-FLA

FELTRE, MORTO DA , Italian painter of the Venetian school, who worked at the close of the 15th century and beginning of the 16th. His real name appears to have been Pietro Luzzo; he is also known by the name Zarato or Zarotto, either from the place of his death or because his father, a surgeon, was in

Zara

ZARA (Serbo-Croatian Zadar)

during the son's childhood: whether he was termed Morto (dead) from his joyless temperament is a disputed point. He may probably have studied

painting

PAINTING

first in Venice, but under what master is uncertain. At an early age he went to Rome, and investigated the ancient, especially the subterranean remains, and thence to Pozzuoli, where he painted from the decorations of antique crypts or " grotte." The style of fanciful

arabesque

ARABESQUE

which he formed for himself from these studies gained the name of " grottesche," whence comes the

term

TERM

"grotesque"; not, indeed, that Morto was the first painter of

arabesque

ARABESQUE

in the Italian Renaissance, for art of this kind had, apart from his influence, been fully developed, both in

painting

PAINTING

and in sculpture, towards 148o, but he may have powerfully aided its diffusion southwards. His works were received with much favour in Rome. He afterwards went to Florence, and painted some fine grotesques in the Palazzo Pubblico. Returning to Venice towards 1505, he assisted Giorgione in painting the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, and seems to have remained with him till 1511. If we may trust

Ridolfi

RIDOLFI, or RIDOLFO, ROBERTO DI (1531-1612)

, Morto eloped with the mistress of Giorgione, whose grief at this transaction brought him to the grave; the allegation, however, is hardly reconcilable with other accounts. It may have been in 1515 that Morto returned to his native Feltre, then in a very ruinous

condition

CONDITION (Lat. condicio, from condicere, to agree upon, arrange; not connected with conditio, from condere, conditum, to put together)

from the ravages of war in 1509. There he executed various works, including some frescoes, still partly extant, and considered to be almost worthy of the hand of

Raphael

RAPHAEL (Hebrew smm, " God heals ")

, in the loggia beside San Stefano. Towards the age of

forty

FORTY

-five, Morto, unquiet and dissatisfied, abandoned painting and took to soldiering in the service of the Venetian republic. He was made captain of a troop of two hundred men; and fighting valorously, he is said to have died at

Zara

ZARA (Serbo-Croatian Zadar)

in Dalmatia, in 1519. This story, and especially the date of it, are questionable: there is some reason to think that Morto was painting as

late

LATE

as 1522. One of his pictures is in the Berlin museum, an allegorical subject of " Peace and War."

Andrea

ANDREA, GIOVANNI (1275-1348)

Feltrini was his pupil and assistant as a decorative painter.

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