PENNI, Luca

Italian painter, brother of Giovan Francesco Penni. He came from a family of Florentine weavers and may have been Raphael's pupil in Rome, since his brother had an important position in Raphael's Roman workshop. In the late 1520s, Penni worked with his brother-in-law Perino del Vaga in Genoa and Lucca.

In 1530 Penni traveled to France, where he remained until his death. From 1537 to 1540, he collaborated with Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio at the château of Fontainebleau. He also worked outside the court as a painter, draftsman, and tapestryGLOSSARYAs historical climatologists have not shown that Renaissance Italian winters and springs were warmer than they are now, it is puzzling that Italy did not fabricate tapestries to decorate and draught-proof the stony rooms of its palaces until 1545, when Cosimo I set up a manufactory in Florence. To hardiness or stinginess (tapestry was by far the most expensive form of wall decoration) we owe the existence of such secular frescoed decorative schemes as the labours of the months in the castle at Trent (c. 1407), the Arthurian scenes of Pisanello and the courtly ones of Mantegna in the Ducal Palace of Mantua, the delicious calendar fantasies of Cossa and others in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara - and, doubtless, many others that await liberation from whitewash or later panelling. These are all in situations where northern patrons would have used tapestries. These were imported, chiefly from Flanders, into Italy. The influence of their hunting and ceremonial scenes in particular registered on Italian 'gothic' painting or illumination and stained glass, and in literature. But the Italians did not make them. The most famous of all 'Italian' tapestries, those for the Sistine Chapel designed by Raphael, were made in Brussels from the full-scale coloured patterns, or cartoons, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Nor is it clear whether imported tapestries were used habitually or simply to add grandeur to special occasions. Even when Cosimo's manufactory was in being, and working from designs by court artists of the calibre of Bronzino, Salviati and Allori, his own headquarters, the Palace of the Signoria (now the Palazzo Vecchio), was being decorated with frescoes. The subject is underexplored. designer. Penni's drawings for the Story of Diana served as models for a set of tapestries produced for King Henry II. His documented works include portraits and religious subjects.

Penni settled in Paris in 1550, and from 1553 he worked primarily as a designer of engravings for Étienne Delaune and others. Engravers in France, Italy, and Flanders widely reproduced his designs.