Fra Carnevale

Fra Carnevale OP (c. 1420-1425 – 1484) was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento, active mainly in Urbino. Carnivale, widely regarded as one of the most enigmatic artists, has only nine works that can be definitively attributed to him. Most of these have even been contested as authentic to Carnavale at various points in history.

He is cited by a number of names including Bartolomeo di Giovanni Corradini, Bartolomeo Coradini and Fra' Carnevale.

He was born in Urbino, and entered the order of Dominicans in 1449 under the name of Fra’ Carnevale or Carnovale. He was a pupil of the Ferrarese painter Antonio Alberti. Farquhar claims he was the teacher of Giovanni Santi. Between 1445-1446, he worked in the studio of Filippo Lippi in Florence. For centuries, the only reference to Carnavale existed in Giorgio Vasari's "The Lives of the Artists." Here, Vasari referred to Carnavale as Carnovale da Urbino, the painter of the altarpiece at Santa Maria della Bella in Urbino as well as the influence behind Bramante's architecture of St. Peter's in Rome. He also was an architect for the portals of San Domenico in Urbino.

The painting known by the name "The Ideal City" - one of three similar styled paintings - very often referred to in books on the theory and history of urban design - and housed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, USA - is attributed to Fra Carnevale. However, the painting is attributed by others to Francesco di Giorgio Martini, partly due to the latter's greater significance at the Urbino court and because the painting refers to architectural themes he refers to, derived from Leon Battista Alberti's slightly earlier published treatise, in his own architectural treatise.

The Birth of the Virgin, now attributed to Carnavale, comprises two panels and is now housed in part in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and part in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The panels were part of an altarpiece commissioned on behalf of the Santa Maria della Bella in Urbino in 1467.

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