Personalities Palma the Younger (Palma il Giovane), Jacopo

Venetian painter and engraver of the late Renaissance and Mannerism. He was born in a family of Venetian artists. His father, Antonio Negritti, had a successful studio, his mother’s brother was artist Bonifazzo de Piatati, and his father’s uncle — the famous painter Palma Vecchio. Despite this, Palma was almost self-taught. In 1567, Guidobaldo II Della Rovere, the Duke of Urbino, became his patron whose patronage allowed him to study in Rome. In his works, there was tangible influence of Tintoretto and Veronese. In addition to portraits and scene paintings, he painted the decorations in the Doge’s Palace after a fire in 1577.

As graphics painter Palma owes his success to publisher Giacomo Franco, son of Battista Franco, who published the book «De excellentia et nobilitate delineationis libri duo» in 1611, which includes Palma’s graphics works. The treatise, published in two books, included the plot and some (separate) anatomical studios, made in the technique of etching and engraving by Jacopo Palma, in the first book and sketches of the stones, reliefs, vintage scenery, engraved by Battista Franko and, probably, viewed by his son in the second one. The engraving Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery was part of the first book of this publication.