Sebastiano del Piombo

Sebastiano del Piombo
Copy of a self portrait
Born	Sebastiano Luciani c. 1485 Venice, Italy
Died	21 June 1547 Rome, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Education	Giovanni Bellini
Known for	Painting
Notable work	Saint John Chrysostom Pietà Portrait of Clement VII
Movement	High Renaissance Mannerism

Sebastiano del Piombo (Italian: [sebaˈstjaːno del ˈpjombo]; c. 1485 – 21 June 1547), byname of Sebastiano Luciani, was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance and early Mannerist periods famous as the only major artist of the period to combine the coloring of the Venetian school in which he was trained with the monumental forms of the Roman school.

His nickname derived from the lucrative Papal appointment as Keeper of the Seal (piombo or "lead", as in the metal, means a seal), which he held from 1531. Never a very disciplined or productive painter, his artistic productivity fell still further after this, which committed him to attend on the pope most days, and travel with him. He now painted mostly portraits, and relatively few works of his survive compared to his great contemporaries in Rome. This limited his involvement with the Mannerist style of his later years.

Having achieved success as a lutanist when young, he turned to painting and trained with Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. When he first went to Rome he worked with Raphael and then became one of the few painters to get on well with Michelangelo, who tried to promote his career by encouraging him to compete for commissions against Raphael.

He painted portraits and religious subjects in oils, and once he was established avoided the large fresco schemes that took up so much of the time of Raphael and Michelangelo. His subsequent influence was limited by his lack of prominent pupils, compared to Raphael at least, and relatively little dissemination of his works in print copies.

Sebastiano del Piombo belongs to the painting school of his native city, Venice, but was active for a large portion of his career in Rome. At first a musician, chiefly a soloist on the lute, he was in great demand among the Venetian nobility. He soon showed a turn for painting, and became a pupil of Giovanni Bellini and afterwards of Giorgione, whose influence is apparent in his works. Some of Sebastiano's works were indeed confused with Giorgione's, i.e. the Salomè of 1510.