Venetian family of artists, founders of the Venetian School in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Jacopo (b. c. 1400; d. 1470–71), the father-in-law of Andrea Mantegna, worked at Venice, Padua, Verona and Ferrara. Gentile (b. c. 1429; d. 1507) was probably the elder son of Jacopo and was trained by him. Although now overshadowed by his brother, he was no less famous in his own day. Giovanni (b. c. 1430; d. 1516) contributed more than any painter of his time to the creation of the great Venetian School.
Jacopo’s few surviving paintings are executed in a simple and austere style. He is principally known by the designs for compositions, comprising figures, landscape and architectural perspectives, in his sketch-books, of which his sons made use, now in the British Museum and Louvre. His son Gentile was made Count Palatine by the emperor 1469, and was chosen 1479 to go to Constantinople to paint portraits for the sultan, Mohammed II (of whom the much-repainted portrait is in the National Gallery, London). Gentile’s great ability in portraiture is shown by the Man with a Pair of Dividers (National Gallery, London), though the superb St Dominic, long attributed to him, is now assigned to Giovanni. He painted a series of history pictures for the Doge’s Palace 1474, which were later destroyed, but extant compositions are his paintings of Venetian ceremonies and pageants, in which he gives a fascinating view of the city, his Procession in the Piazza San Marco (Accademia, Venice) being famous. A beautiful drawing of
a janissary from his Turkish voyage is in the British Museum. His St Mark Preaching at Alexandria (Brera, Milan) was left to be finished by his brother. The numerous works attributed to Giovanni, and coming from the workshop where he employed many assistants, show wide variations of style. A sculptural firmness derived from his brother-in-law, Mantegna, appears in the impressive early work, The Agony in the Garden (National Gallery). Antonello da Messina, who visited Venice 1475–76, contributed no doubt to the richness of color and the development of his oil technique (as seen in the portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan, c. 1500, National Gallery). One of the great Renaissance compositions is the altarpiece of San Giobbe, 1479 (Venice, Accademia), while in its soft fullness of modeling the Madonna degli Alberetti (Accademia) links Bellini with his pupils, Giorgione and Titian. He worked to an advanced age on paintings for public buildings and churches in Venice and other cities, including numerous versions of the Madonna and Child. Altarpieces for San Pietro Martire, Murano, the church of the Frari and the church of San Zaccaria are notable, as also is a late mythological composition, The Feast of the Gods, 1514 (Washington), in which Titian may have had a hand.

(1801-1835) Italian composer of operas. He collaborated with the tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794–1854) to develop a new simplicity of melodic expression in romantic evocations of classic themes, as in La Sonnambula/The Sleepwalker and Norma, both 1831. In I Puritani/The Puritans 1835, his last work, he discovered a new boldness and vigor of orchestral effect.