Sabbatini, Andrea

, known likewise by the name of Andrea da Salerno, is the first artist that deserves notice, of the Neapolitan school. He is supposed to have been born about 1480. Enamoured of the style of Pietro Perugino, who had painted an Assumption of the Virgin in the dome of Naples, he set out for Perugia to become his pupil; but hearing at an inn on the road some painters extol the works of Raphael in the Vatican, he altered his mine!, went to Rome, and entered that master’s school. His stay there was short, for the death of his father obliged him to return home against his will in 1513; he returned, however, a new man. It is said that he painted with Raphael at the Pace, and in the Vatican, and that he copied Jiis pictures well: he certainly emulated his manner with success. Compared with his fellow-scholars, if he falls short of Julio, he soars above Raphael del Colle and the rest of that sphere. He had correctness and selection of attitude and features, depth of shade, perhaps too much sharpness in the marking of the muscles, a broad style of folding in his draperies, and a colour which even now maintains its freshness. Of his numerous works at Naples mentioned in the catalogue of his pictures, the altarpieces at S. Maria delle Grazie deserve perhaps preference; for his fn scoes there and elsewhere, extolled by the writers as miracles of art, are now, the greater part, destroyed. He painted likewise at Salerno, Gaeta, and other places of the kingdom, for churches and private collections, where his Madonnas often rival those of Raphael. This distinguished artist died in 1545. ²

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