Pordenone

▪ Italian painter

original name  Giovanni Antonio De' Sacchis 

born c. 1483, Pordenone, Republic of Venice

died 1539, Ferrara, Duchy of Ferrara

      High Renaissance Italian painter chiefly known for his frescoes of religious subjects.

      Pordenone was a pupil of Pellegrino da S. Daniele and other Friulian masters, but his early style is founded on Venetian models and in particular on Andrea Mantegna. Later he was influenced by Titian, Correggio, and also by the Roman works of Michelangelo and Raphael. It is assumed, therefore, that he went to Rome, probably about 1515/16.

      Pordenone worked throughout northern Italy. In Venice his work was so popular that for a time he seriously rivaled Titian himself. His frescoes in Venice have perished, but his “Passion” frescoes (after 1521; Cremona Cathedral) and his frescoes in Treviso Cathedral (1520–22) are rendered in broad strokes of vibrant colour and reveal a grave, but sometimes violent, temperament. His frescoes at Piacenza (1531; Madonna di Campagna) are painted in the illusionistic manner of Correggio and exhibit a more brilliant palette and precise technique. Pordenone had no significant followers, but Titian and Peter Paul Rubens borrowed ideas from his work.

▪ Italy

      city, Friuli–Venezia Giulia regione, northeastern Italy. It lies along a small tributary of the Meduna River, southwest of Udine.

      Originating as the Roman and medieval river port of Portus Naonis, it was a bulwark of the Trevisani in their war against Aquileia until it was destroyed by the latter in 1233. It later became a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, passed to Venice in 1508, and became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866. In 1968 it became the capital of the newly created Pordenone province.

      Pordenone city has many fine Roman-Gothic and Venetian palaces, including the Palazzo Comunale (1291) with its picture gallery. The 13th–14th-century campanile of the 15th-century cathedral is a national monument. Both cathedral and gallery contain paintings by the Renaissance artist Pordenone, whose birthplace the city was.

      The principal industrial centre of Friuli, the city manufactures motor vehicles, domestic appliances, textiles, ceramics, and cutlery. Pop. (2006 est.) mun., 50,926.

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