Vittore Belliniano

( fl 1507; d Venice, after 16 Aug 1529). Italian painter. His real name was Vittore di Matteo, but he seems to have assumed the name Belliniano after 1516 in honour of his dead master, Giovanni Bellini, and as a means of identifying himself as his artistic heir. On Bellini's recommendation, Vittore was commissioned in 1507 (together with Carpaccio) to complete the canvases in the Doge's Palace, Venice, left unfinished by Alvise Vivarini (destr. 1577) and in 1508 to serve on the committee to evaluate Giorgione's frescoes on the fa?ade of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Vittore also completed the large canvas of the Martyrdom of St Mark for the Scuola di S Marco, Venice (Venice, Accad., on dep. Ospedale Civile), commissioned from Bellini in 1515 shortly before his death and signed by Vittore in 1526. Comparison of this with Vittore's other signed works, respectively dated 1518, 1521 and 1524, suggests that while Bellini probably designed the work, the execution must be mainly that of Vittore. Although his style closely followed that of his master, Vittore was also responsive to the romantic tonalism of Giorgione and to the more grandiose figure style of Titian; the somewhat inflated forms of a Coronation of the Virgin (1524) in the parish church, Spinea (Mestre), also suggest the influence of the early works of Pordenone. Vittore's other signed pictures, such as the Portrait of a Man (Bergamo, Gal. Accad. Carrara), together with the numerous portrait heads in the Martyrdom of St Mark, suggest that Vittore was particularly active as a portrait painter.

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