Perino del Vaga

Perino (or Perin) del Vaga (nickname of Piero Bonaccorsi) (1501 – October 19, 1547) was an Italian painter of the Late Renaissance/Mannerism.

Biography

He was born near Florence. His father ruined himself by gambling, and became a soldier in the invading army of Charles VIII. His mother died when he was but two months old; but shortly afterwards he was taken up by his father's second wife. Perino was first apprenticed to a druggist, but soon passed into the hands of a mediocre painter, Andrea de' Ceri, and when eleven years of age, of Ridolfo Ghirlandaio.

Perino was one of Ghirlandaio's most talented pupils. Another mediocre painter, Vaga from Toscanella, undertook to settle the boy in Rome. Perino, when he at last reached Rome, was utterly poor, and with no clear prospect beyond journey-work for trading decorators. He was eventually entrusted with some of the subordinate work undertaken by Raphael in the Vatican. He assisted Giovanni da Udine in the stucco and arabesque decorations of the Loggie Vaticane, and executed some of those small but finely composed scriptural subjects which go by the name of Raphael's Bible, Raphael himself furnishing the designs.