ANSELMI, Michelangelo

Italian painter and draughtsman. He was arguably the most imaginative painter in Parma in the early 16th century after Correggio and Parmigianino. However, he was trained in Siena, though his only surviving work there, a Visitation in the church of Fontegiusta, shows the importance of Sodoma in the formation of his art.

Anselmi’s family was apparently from Parma, but he is not securely documented there until 1520. In that year he began to paint in San Giovanni Evangelista, where he decorated the ribs of the nave vaults, the apses of both transepts and at least two chapels: the chapel in the north transept, with frescoes of Sts Agnes and Catherine, and the sixth chapel on the left of the nave, with frescoes of the Four Doctors of the Church. It has also been suggested that he executed the frescoes of Sts Nicholas and Hilary in the fourth chapel on the left, which have been attributed to Parmigianino.

In 1525 Anselmi was one of the group of prominent artists consulted about the construction of Santa Maria della Steccata, Parma, where his most extensive works in fresco were subsequently painted. These comprise the Coronation of the Virgin (1541-42, altered 1547) in the main apse, a commission that was given to him after the death of Parmigianino in 1540 and for which he was required to work from a ‘coloured drawing’ by Giulio Romano, and, on the facing apse and vault over the west door, an Adoration of the Magi and Four Prophets, which were completed by Bernardino Gatti.