Lorenzo Leonbruno

Biography

At a young age, Lorenzo Leonbruno was adopted by the Mantuan court painter Giovanni Luca de' Liombini, and was raised as his own son. Although there remains little extant documentation on his early life and artistic training, some of his early training is attributed to the workshop of Andrea Mantegna, who was a highly distinguished court painter for Lodovico Gonzaga and the Gonzaga family. Mantegna painted frescoes and portraits for the Gonzaga court in their palace at Mantua in the mid-late 15th century, as well as some interior paintings of the Palazzo di San Sebastiano. Leonbruno's training with Andrea Mantegna ended with his death in 1506. After Mantegna's death, the Gongaza's selected several artists from his workshop to replace him as court artists, among them Lorenzo Costa the Elder, whom Leonbruno would train under, and later, Lorenzo Leonbruno.

As a young artist, Leonbruno travelled around the major artistic cities in Renaissance Italy; mainly Florence (1504-1506), Venice (1511), and Rome (1521). In 1504, Leonbruno was taken under the care of Isabella d'Este, who was one of Liombini and Lorenzo Costa the Elder's patrons. During the short period from 1504-1506, he was sent to Florence on her recommendation to work in the workshop of Pietro Perugino, since he was a young man and in the early stages of his artistic career. Leonbruno also trained under Lorenzo Costa in Mantua during the year 1508, who was a court painter for Lodovico Gonzaga and Isabella d'Este.

In 1512, Leonbruno returned to Mantua under the supervision and commission of Lorenzo Costa the Elder. He was assigned the task of painting interior rooms in the Palazzo di San Sebastiano; the favorite residence of Francesco II Gonzaga. For this project, Leonbruno worked alongside another Mantuan artist, Dosso Dossi.

In 1521, Leonbruno was sent to Rome by Federico II Gonzaga, the eldest son of Isabella d'Este, to study the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. Federico ordered the ambassador Baldassare Castiglione to look after Leonbruno during his visit. However, Castiglione held Raphael's lead pupil, Giulio Romano, in higher favor. Romano would soon replace Leonbruno as the Mantuan court painter for the Gonzaga family in 1524. As a result, Leonbruno remained in Rome for one month, and then returned to Mantua. Upon his return to Mantua, Leonbruno was commissioned by Federico Gonzaga to redecorate the interior rooms on the ground floor of Castello di San Georgio, one of the ducal palaces of the Gonzaga family. Following the tradition of Mantuan rulers, and after his accession to power in 1519, Federico had relocated to the apartments on the ground floor of Castello di San Georgio. He thus commissioned the court painter Leonbruno to redecorate his suite with his family's heraldry, symbols of power, and the Gonzaga family coat of arms. Leonbruno worked on this commission from 1521-1523. These works have since been destroyed.

Leonbruno was not very productive in his artistic career. He only produced a handful of works, despite his large commissions to decorate the Gonzaga palaces, and only four of his signed works still survive. The most prominent of these signed works is the Adoration of the Shepherds c. 1505, and the Judgement of Midas, c. 1512-1514, with the signature located on the ground near the hand of the figure clad in a blue tunic. The others are the Lamentation Over the Dead Christ, and Saint Jerome Contemplating His Crucifix, although the date of creation remains unknown.

Although Leonbruno's career as the court painter for the Gonzaga family ended in 1524, he remained active as a painter until 1533. It was in this later phase of his artistic career that Leonbruno took interest in military architecture. In 1530, he was forced to leave Mantua on account of Giulio Romano. He travelled to Milan to pursue architectural design, and from 1530-1532 he was employed as an architect and military engineer for the Duke of Milan Francis II Sforza. However, none of his architectural designs or drawings survived. In 1532, Leonbruno returned to Mantua where he was commissioned by Aloisio Gonzaga to produce architectural designs for his fortress, Castel Geoffredo. However, his architectural designs for the fortress no longer survive. According to most sources, from 1531-1532 Benedetta Gonzaga commissioned Leonbruno to paint an altarpiece for an altar of which the location and name remain unknown today. The work, titled Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saint Lawrence, Saint Peter, and Saint Louis of Toulouse, still survives today, and is now in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan. This is primarily one of the final paintings Leonbruno produced in the last phase of his artistic career.

Palazzo di San Sebastiano

In 1512, Leonbruno returned to Mantua on commission by Francesco II Gonzaga to decorate the interior of one of his private residences, the Palazzo di San Sebastiano. As mentioned previously, Leonbruno worked under the supervision of Lorenzo Costa the Elder, as well as alongside the Mantuan artists Dosso Dossi. The interior rooms Leonbruno decorated with wall paintings include: the oratory, a camerino (dressing room), the loggia, and numerous smaller rooms. It is here that Leonbruno supposedly painted one of his most well-known works, Apollo and the Nine Muses. The work was a large canvas painting depicting Apollo playing music and the nine Muses singing to Francesco II Gonzaga. However, it has been much debated as to whether this painting did exist or if it was painted by the hand of Leonbruno. A document dating to the early 16th century attributes this canvas painting to Leonbruno, but recent scholarship has disregarded this document and has adopted the theory that Leonbruno did not produce this work. This work, along with the rest of his wall paintings in the Palazzo di San Sebastiano, have all been destroyed.

Camera Grande della Palazzo Ducale di Mantova

In 1520-1522, Leonbruno was commissioned by Isabella d'Este to decorate the interior vaulted ceiling of her apartment in the Corte Vecchia, the room where she lived as a widow after her husband's death in 1519. The apartment was known as the Camera Grande, which subsequently became the name of his work; a vast ceiling fresco depicting scenes of hunting in lunettes encircling a central oculus portraying a fictional scene. The fresco features exquisite gold and white stucco which frame thematic scenes from antiquity. It has been said that this work was inspired by Andrea Mantegna's well-known earlier ceiling paintings in the Camera Picta. The work still survives today, and the date of the decorations created by Leonbruno are mentioned in a document dating to 1522.

List of Works and Current Locations

[[File:Allegory of Slander or, Allegory of Fortune.jpg|thumb|Lorenzo Leonbruno. 1524-1525. Allegory of Fortune, [[Pinacoteca di Brera], Milan]]