BELLINI, Leonardo

Italian illuminator and painter, nephew of Jacopo Bellini. A contract of employment dated 23 August 1443, for two years apprenticeship with his maternal uncle Jacopo Bellini, has survived, and it is known that Leonardo lived with him from 1431 and, after the death of his natural father Paolo Remario, adopted Bellini’s family name. He is also recorded as having been a witness at legal proceedings in Venice in 1469 and 1479. His known paintings, all mixed media on panel, are the Mocking of Christ (c. 1445-50; Collezione Vittorio Cini, Venice), St Ursula and Four Holy Women (c. 1470; Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice) and Three Scenes from the Life of Drusiana (c. 1480; Schlossmuseum, Berchtesgaden).

The principal work attributed to Leonardo consists of approximately 200 miniatures in a Hebrew manuscript known as the Rothschild Miscellanea, which contains 70 religious and secular texts on 473 sheets (c. 1470; Israel Museum, Jerusalem, MS. ¹⁸⁰⁄₅₁). His only authenticated works are the miniatures of the promission of a Doge, for which there is a record of payment dated December 1463. These can be identified as the Oath of Office of Cristoforo Moro (British Library, London, Add. MS. 15816). Twenty-three further works have been attributed to Leonardo. Eight of these are dated in the text and were illuminated soon afterwards; hence Leonardo’s career can be traced from the Mocking of Christ to c. 1457 when he worked on a Bible in two parts (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, MS. Lat. I.16), to a second Bible, dated 1461 (Biblioteca del Seminario, Padua, MS. XXI), to the Promission of Niccolò Marcello (1473; Museo Correr, Venice, MS. III, 322), to 1476 with the Mariegola of the Scuola dei Mascoli (Museo diocesano d’arte sacra Sant’Apollonia, Venice, No. 32) and up to 1490 with the unfinished Tacuinum sanitatis (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna).

The influence of Jacopo Bellini and Franco dei Russi is evident in Leonardo Bellini’s works, in which he incorporated Renaissance elements and contemporary architectural forms together with a feeling for three-dimensional space. He also used a Ferrarese style of ornamentation with border medallions containing animals and half-figures. His work forms part of the revitalization of Venetian illumination after the stereotyped images of the first half of the 15th century.