BEMBO, Giovan Francesco

Italian painter, part of a family of painters, nephew of Bonifazio Bembo. He can be identified with the Giovan Francesco Vetraio mentioned by Vasari in the 1568 edition of the Vite, but very little is known of either his life or his works. He was presumably born in Cremona and trained in a local bottega. According to Vasari, he went to Rome to paint Pope Leo X’s coat of arms on the facad of Cardinal Francesco Soderini’s palazzo. This must have been done between 1513, the year of Leo X’s election, and 1518, when Bembo is documented at Cremona for the decoration of the central nave of the cathedral. He was paid in December 1519 for the Adoration of the Magi and the Presentation in the Temple in the fifth bay on the left. In these frescoes, which form part of the vast cycle already begun by Boccaccio Boccaccino and to which Altobello Melone and Pordenone contributed shortly afterwards, Bembo left his first signature: BEMBUS INCIPIENS.

Chronologically close to these frescoes was the altarpiece of the Virgin and Child with SS Francis and Stephen, of which only two fragments survive: the Virgin and Child (Galleria d’Arte, Cremona) and a tondo with the head of St Francis (private collection). An old photograph of the complete altarpiece, or an early copy of it, has been recovered. In 1967 Gregori published a portrait of a Girl with a Dog (private collection), which can be ascribed with certainty to Bembo and is datable to 1510-20. There is less agreement over the panel of the Adoration of the Child (Cremona Cathedral). In 1517 Bembo received payment for two paintings (untraced) for Cremona Cathedral. The next documentation is in 1524, when he signed the altarpiece of the Virgin, Three Saints and a Donor (San Pietro al Po, Cremona). The style of this work suggests that Bembo had made a second journey to central Italy in order to keep up with artistic developments. There are several more mentions of him in Cremonese documents but none after 1543.