Sebastiano Luciani, later named del Piombo, is one of the lesser known, but no less outstanding artists of the Italian Renaissance. The painter, originally from Venice, was once a serious contender to Raphael when it came to winning favour with the Roman public and was also befriended with Michelangelo. In his atmospheric paintings he manages [...]

Look up Sebastiano Luciani (always known by his nickname Del Piombo, from the lucrative office of Keeper of the Papal Seals, granted him by Clement VII) in the MacMillan Dictionary of Art and you’ll learn that he was one of the most important painters in Italy during the first half of the 16th century.
Yet in [...]