Lorenzo the Younger Costa

1537 – 1583

Italian painter, probably the son of Ippolito Costa (1506-1561), grandson of Lorenzo Costa the Elder. It is likely that his early training was with his father in Mantua in the period after the death (1546) of Giulio Romano, when the architect Giovanni Battista Bertani was a major influence. Three of Lorenzo's paintings are mentioned in a document dated 1560; in 1561 he was paid for a banner (untraced) for the chapter house of Mantua Cathedral. From 1561 to 1564 he was in Rome, where he worked at the Vatican with Federico Zuccaro on decorations for the Borgia tower, the tribunal of the Ruota, the Belvedere and the Casino of Pius IV. In 1564 he was still in Rome, painting a series of papal portraits for Alfonso Gonzaga of Novellara. In this period he became acquainted with Bertani, with whom he worked on altarpieces for Santa Barbara in Mantua; he received payments between 1569 and 1572 for the Baptism of Constantine and the Martyrdom of St Adrian, based on drawings by Bertani.

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