Piazza, Callistus

, an artist who flourished from 1524 to 1545, was of Lodi, and imitated the style of | Titian, and sometimes of Giorgione, with distinguished and often unrivalled success. Such is the surprising beauty of some heads painted by him in one of the chapels of the Incoronata at Lodi, that a tradition prevailed of their having been painted by Titian himself, on his passage through that place. His picture of the Madonna with some saints, at S. Francesco in Brescia, reminds us of Giorgione. To the memory of this great man, Ridolfi has done little justice, by praising him only for his colour in fresco and distemper, without noticing the grandeur of his design, and the elegance of his forms. He likewise mistakes the name of his native place for his surname, and calls him a Brescian, in defiance of the inscriptions at the Incoronata, and elsewhere, of Callixtus de Platea, and Callixtus Laudensis. ¹