(b Genoa, c. 1550; d the Escorial, nr Madrid, 30 Nov 1593). Italian painter, active in Spain. He was the son of the painter Niccolosio Granello, a former pupil of Ottavio Semino. After his father's death, his mother Margherita married the architect and painter Giovanni Battista Castello (i), and his half-brother Fabrizio Castello (see CASTELLO (i), (2)) was born of this marriage. In 1566 or 1567 the family moved to Madrid, where Giovanni Battista Castello worked for the Spanish court, and when he died in 1569, Granello became Fabrizio Castello's guardian and taught him to paint. Granello himself probably studied under his stepfather and was one of the group of painters who worked with him in Spain. He assisted him with the decorations (destr.) in the Alc?zar (destr.) in Madrid and was nominated Pintor del Rey to Philip II on 1 April 1571. His only surviving work is in the monastery of the Escorial, where, with his half-brother, he frescoed the vaults of the chapter rooms and the sacristy (1581-4). From 1585 to 1591 he and Castello, assisted by Lazzaro Tavarone and Orazio Cambiaso (d 1585), executed their most significant work: the decoration of the walls of the large Galer?a or Sala de Batallas in the state rooms of the Queen at the Escorial. They depicted the Battle of San Quint?n and the Battle of Higueruela (the latter copied from a 15th-century wall hanging), as well as scenes of Spanish naval victories against Portugal in the Terceras (now Azores) in 1580-84. These paintings are rendered in a simple, descriptive and draughtsmanlike style suited to this type of narrative theme. The scenes are rigid and uniform, schematically decorated and are dominated by a concern for achieving historical fidelity so as to intensify the didactic nature of the ensemble.
See the Abbreviations for further details.
