Giulio Clovio

1498 – 1578

Italian painter and illuminator of Croatian birth (originally Juraj Klovic). The most important illuminator of the 16th century, he was a 'Michelangelo of small works', according to Vasari. Many of his documented works are dispersed or untraced, and some attributions are controversial, but his secure oeuvre gives a clear idea of his stylistic influences and development. Although much of his inspiration came from Raphael and Michelangelo, he developed his own visual language, brilliantly translating their monumental forms for work on the smallest scale. Clovio is said to have studied at Rome under Giulio Romano and at Verona under Girolamo de' Libri. His book of 26 pictures representing the procession of Corpus Domini, in Rome, was the work of nine years, and the covers were executed by Benvenuto Cellini. The British Museum has his 12 miniatures of the victories of the emperor Charles V. A manuscript life of Federico, duke of Urbino, in the Vatican Library, is superbly illustrated by him, and many other works are doubtfully attributed to him. He sometimes exceeded the limitations of his medium in attempts to sustain the art of illumination.

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