Along with Giorgione, Sebastiano del Piombo (c. 1485–1547) was regarded during his own lifetime as the most aspiring Venetian painter, and he later became Raphael’s fiercest competitor in Rome. He was the only Renaissance artist to mediate between the Venetian and central Italian schools. Drawing on the ideas of Giorgione, Leonardo, and Michelangelo, he refined them to develop a forceful, colorful, and classical style. The resourceful Venetian was the first to discover a technique that enabled him to paint with oils on stone. He and his close friend Michelangelo fell out over this, as the latter thought this technique was only something for “women and lazybones like Sebastiano.” This is why Giorgio Vasari, in his Lives of the Artists, denounced him posthumously as having been lazy, which resulted in centuries of disrespect for Sebastiano del Piombo’s work. The rediscovery of this unique portraitist is long overdue. This biography supplements the catalogue accompanying exhibitions in Rome and Berlin in 2008. (English edition ISBN 978-3-7757-2145-5)
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