Travel Pick: Art and Archaeology in Germany
Raphael’s Grace – Michelangelo’s Furore.

Sebastiano Luciani, later named del Piombo, is one of the lesser known, but no less outstanding artists of the Italian Renaissance. The painter, originally from Venice, was once a serious contender to Raphael when it came to winning favour with the Roman public and was also befriended with Michelangelo. In his atmospheric paintings he manages to fuse the Venetian colours of his masters Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione with the monumentality of the Roman school.

Sebastiano del Piombo was the name given to him when Pope Clement VII awarded him the lucrative papal office of keeper of the leaden seals in 1531. His work encompassed altarpieces, few mythological scenes and most of all portraits. This loan exhibition, first shown in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, includes paintings on wood, canvas or slate, as well as drawings, which were often used as preparatory sketches for frescoes. Alongside works by Sebastiano himself, drawings by Michelangelo and some Spanish descendants of his style are also on view.