Antonello da Messina

An exceptional volume that presents the entire painting oeuvre by Antonello da Messina, one of the most important artists in Western art history. Antonello da Messina was an exceptional and unmistakable artist, considered the greatest portraitist of the 1400s and fundamental contributor to the history of Italian painting. Giorgio Vasari narrates, in his famous Lives, how he learned the secret of oil painting from Jan van Eyck, and from Bruges brought it to the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, only a handful of works by Antonello remain, having escaped tragic natural calamities and negligence; those that have survived are scattered in various collections and museums between the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic, even beyond the English Channel and the Atlantic.