MARCONI, Rocco

Italian painter. He is mentioned as being a native of Treviso, but signed himself venetus in the contractual document for an altarpieceGLOSSARYA picture or sculpture that stands on or is set up behind an altar. The term reredos is used for an ornamental screen or partition, not directly attached to the altar table but affixed to the wall behind it. A diptych is an altarpiece consisting of two panels, a triptych one of three panels, and a polyptych one of four or more panels. From the 14th to 16th century, the altarpiece was one of the most important commissions in European art; it was through the altarpiece that some of the most decisive developments in painting and sculpture came about. for Treviso. He may have been born in Venice to parents originating from Bergamo. He is documented for the first time as a witness in 1504, and then several times until 1529, including in 1517 as an auditor of the GuildGLOSSARYAn association of the masters of a particular craft, trade or profession (painters, goldsmiths, surgeons, and so on) set up to protect its members' rights and interests. Such guilds existed in virtually every European city in the 16th century. The guild also monitored standards of work, acted as a court for those who brought their trade into disrepute, and provided assistance to members in need. of Painters, a sign that by this time he was already established.

He spent over 25 years in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, and during this period, either in the 1490s or perhaps the late 1480s, he produced three paintings of the Virgin and Child (Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux-Arts), all signed Rochus de Marchonib. These are exact copies of Bellini's Virgin and Child (c. 1485-90; Atlanta, GA, High Museum of Art), on which it is sometimes thought that Marconi collaborated. On the basis of these signed works others have been attributed, most of which are now reattributed to the Venetian Master of the Incredulity of St Thomas. Thus there are only three or four certain works from the years Marconi spent with Bellini.

On Bellini's death (1516) Marconi moved to the workshop of Palma Vecchio and adjusted his style accordingly, although his figures retained some of the rigid quality that was characteristic of Bellini's art. He specialized mainly in paintings of Christ and the Adulteress and Christ with Martha and Mary, although many that have been attributed to him are undoubtedly not by his hand. From this second phase of his career there is also the signed altarpiece of Christ Blessing, with Two Saints (Venice, S Giovanni e Paolo). It is painted in his characteristic mixture of styles derived from Bellini and Palma Vecchio, which cannot be said of two other works that have been attributed to him: the Christ with Sts Peter and John the Baptist (Venice, Accademia) and the altarpiece in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.