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| L'Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) St Sebastian flanked by St Roch and St Demetrius ca. 1520 oil on panel, transferred to canvas National Gallery, London |
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| L'Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) St Sebastian flanked by St Roch and St Demetrius (detail) ca. 1520 oil on panel, transferred to canvas National Gallery, London |
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| L'Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) St Sebastian flanked by St Roch and St Demetrius (detail) ca. 1520 oil on panel, transferred to canvas National Gallery, London |
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| L'Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) The Adoration of the Shepherds ca. 1520 oil on panel, transferred to canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
"Most of the cities of the province of Emilia-Romagna are stretched in a direct, diagonal line along the ancient Roman Via Aemilia, from Piacenza in the west through Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna, Faenza, Forlì, and Rimini. The notable exception is Ferrara, located northeast of Bologna and closer to the border of the Veneto. During the sixteenth century, these cities – although mostly small in population – were vibrant and quite distinctive, artistically and culturally. The three principal centers, Ferrara, Bologna, and Parma, were especially so, and each had a unique trajectory in both politics and the arts. . . . The small city of Ferrara was a crucible of Renaissance thought and art. Throughout the fifteenth century, its rulers, the Este family, commissioned works from the greatest contemporary painters – Jacopo Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, Rogier van der Weyden – and fostered a brilliant school of local painters, headed by Cosmè Tura and Ercole de' Roberti. This patronage continued into the sixteenth century under dukes Alfonso I d'Este (reigned 1505-1534) and Ercole II d'Este (reigned 1534-1559). Alfonso's court artist, from 1514 until the duke's death, was Giovanni de Lutero (ca. 1486-1541/42), known as Dosso Dossi. . . . Dosso worked alongside a number of gifted painters. From 1513 he collaborated . . . with Benvenuto Tisi (1481-1559), known as Garofalo, a slightly older and more established artist. Unlike Dosso's work Garofalo's painting was insistently classical, inspired by Francia and other Bolognese artists, and then by Raphael. . . . Among his collaborators was Giovanni Battista Benvenuti (active by 1512, died after 1527) known as L'Ortolano. Indeed, the connection between the two is so close that The Adoration of the Shepherds [directly above], now universally accepted as a work by Ortolano, was for many years attributed to Garofalo. The bucolic landscape in the background, so typical of Ferrarese painting, shows the influence of Ortolano's contemporary, Dosso Dossi."
– from and essay by Andrea Bayer on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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| L'Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) The Crucifixion with the Virgin, St John the Baptist, Mary Magdalen, St John the Evangelist and St Augustine 1517 oil on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| L'Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) Adoration of the Magi before 1525 oil on canvas National Museum, Warsaw |
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| L'Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery ca. 1524-27 oil on panel Courtauld Gallery, London |
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| L'Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) St John the Baptist ca. 1525 oil on panel Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| attributed to L'Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) Warrior Saint ca. 1506 oil on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Il Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi) The Lamentation 1527 oil on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Niccolò Pisano (Niccolò di Bartolomeo dell’Abrugia) Madonna and Child enthroned with St James of Galicia and St Helena 1512-14 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Niccolò Pisano (Niccolò di Bartolomeo dell’Abrugia) Madonna and Child enthroned with Four Saints ca. 1530-35 oil on panel Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires |
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| Niccolò Pisano (Niccolò di Bartolomeo dell’Abrugia) Holy Family ca. 1515 oil on panel Collezione Cavallini Sgarbi al Castello Estense, Ferrara |
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| Niccolò Pisano (Niccolò di Bartolomeo dell’Abrugia) Madonna and Child with St Catherine of Alexandria ca. 1510-15 tempera and oil on panel Brooklyn Museum |