Palma Vecchio

Palma Vecchio, born Jacopo Palma and also known as Jacopo Negretti, was a Venetian painter of the Italian High Renaissance. He was born at Serina Alta near Bergamo, a dependency of the Republic of Venice, but his recorded career all took place in or near Venice. He is called Palma Vecchio in English to distinguish him from Palma il Giovane, his great-nephew, who was also a painter.
Palma is first recorded in Venice in 1510, but had probably already been there for some time. He was perhaps apprenticed to Andrea Previtali, who also came from Bergamo, and who returned there in 1511. Palma's earlier works show the influence of Giovanni Bellini, Previtali's master and by then the aged doyen of Venetian painting, but Palma came to follow the new style and subjects pioneered by Giorgione and Titian. After the deaths of Bellini and Giorgione, and the removal from Venice of Sebastiano del Piombo, Lorenzo Lotto and Previtali, before long Palma found himself, after Titian, the leading painter in Venice, much in demand until his early death at the age of 48.