Giovanni Battista Maganza

Giovanni Battista Maganza
Giovanni Battista Maganza, Saint Jerome penitent (1570), detail. San Marco in San Girolamo, Vicenza.
Born	c. 1513 Calaone near Vicenza
Died	August 25, 1586
Other names	Magagnò (pseudonym)
Occupation(s)	artist, poet

Giovanni Battista Maganza (c. 1513 – August 25, 1586) was a late Renaissance Italian painter and poet, from Vicenza in the area of Calaone, mainly producing religious altarpieces for local churches.

Biography

Altarpiece for church of San Giorgio, Vicenza

Maganza was also a poet and a friend of Andrea Palladio. He visited Rome between 1546 and 1547 and also met Gian Giorgio Trissino and the poet Marco Thiene, he was member of the Accademia Olimpica (Olympic Academy) in Venice where he designed costumes for the play Oedipus Rex, the first opera presented at the Palladio-designed Teatro Olimpico.[1]

As a poet, he wrote satires in the Paduan dialect (and precisely in a now-dead form of it, called "dialetto pavano"), under the nickname Magagnò.

His son Alessandro Maganza was also a prominent local painter. Fontana cites Lanzi and Zanetti as Maganza's dates of birth and death as 1509 and 1589[2] Giovanni De Mio was one of his pupils.

Works

Partial listing:

• San Girolamo penitente (Saint Jerome Penitent) (1570),[3] San Marco in San Girolamo church, Vicenza
• Pala del Rosario (1583), Montebello Vicentino church.
• La conversione di S.Paolo (Conversion of Saint Paul) (16th century), at the large altar of the Novale di Valdagno church, Vicenza.
• Frescoes in Villa Repeta and Campiglia dei Berici.[4]

See also

• San Marco in San Girolamo

References

1. "Maganza". Archived from the original on 2009-04-27. Retrieved 2014-05-14.
2. Illustrazione storico-critica della chiesa di S. Sofia che si Riapre al Culto Divino Dalla sua Primissa Fondazione fino a' Nostri Giorni. (1836) by Gian Jacopo Fontana; Giuseppe Molinari Editor, Venice. Page 27.
3. Sgarbi 1980
4. RAI documentary: Italica - Renaissance Archived 2008-03-24 at the Wayback Machine (in Italian)

Bibliography

• Freedberg, Sydney J. (1993). Pelican History of Art (ed.). Painting in Italy, 1500-1600. Penguin Books. p. 565.