Giulio Romano

Giulio Romano (d. 1546), the name generally given to Giuno del Gianuzzi (sometimes also called Pippi), Raphael's best pupil, was born at Rome between 1490 and 1500. He was apprenticed to Raphael in his early youth, and assisted the master in the Vatican. As one of his executors he also received some of his implements and works of art. Though known as "the Roman," Mantua was the scene of much of his best work. Here in the Palazzo del T6 he executed his great fresco The Befeat of the Giants, and also decorated the cathedral and the ducal palace with similar works. He was about to go to Rome to take up the position of architect of St. Peter's when he died. Giulio was an engineer as well as painter and architect. He drained the marshes round Mantua and protected it from inundations. Of his pictures The Martyrdom of St. Stephen is at Genoa; Florence (the Uffizi) has his own portrait and several other works; the Louvre contains Venus and Vulcan, A Nativity, and other examples; and in the National Gallery is The Infancy of Jupiter. At Rome there are several of his Madonnas and the work in the Vatican (The Battle of Constantine, The Apparition of the Cross, etc.), which he completed for Raphael. Connoisseurs award him much of his master's spirit, but not his grace.