\paperw4995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \f1 Italian painter, architect and art historian.\par
\ATXsh255 The scarcity of information about GiorgioneÆs life fostered the air of mystery
in which his work was soon cloaked. He was probably a pupil of Giovanni Bellini and studied the works of Antonello da Messina. Another important contact was with Leonardo, when the Florentine artist went to Venice in 1500. The extraordinary novelty of hi
s painting is evident in the altarpiece depicting the \i Madonna and Child with Saints Liberale and Francis\i0 in Castelfranco Cathedral, in which the solid framework of perspective opens onto a broad landscape. In 1508 Giorgione worked on the frescoes
in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, along with the young Titian: among the few fragments to have survived is the one depicting a \i Nude Girl\i0 (Venice, Galleria dellÆAccademia). The Venetian man of letters Marcantonio Michiel, writing in the 1520s, recorded
a series of works by the painter in the noble houses of Venice. Among them were some of GiorgioneÆs greatest masterpieces, including the \i Three Philosophers\i0 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) and \i The Tempest\i0 (Venice, Galleria dell'Accademia)
. These works, with often ambiguous allegorical meanings, remind us that the artist frequented the principal intellectual circles of Venice. In the later stages of his career it becomes difficult to distinguish GiorgioneÆs work from that of Titian. Paint
ings of disputed attribution include the \i Sleeping Venus\i0 (Dresden, GemΣldegalerie), the \i Country Concert\i0 (Paris, Louvre), and the \i Madonna with Saint Anthony and Saint Rock\i0 (Madrid, Prado). Already regarded by his contemporaries as one
of the greatest artists of his day, Giorgione is the finest exponent of a style of painting based on the use of color steeped in light, without any drawing.\ATXsh4607
