BOLTRAFFIO (BELTRAFFIO), GIOVANNI AN TONIO (1467-1516), Italian painter of the Lombard school, influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. He belonged to a distinguished Milanese family and occupied important civic posts in his native town, painting as an accomplished amateur, rather than as an artist by profession. His epitaph, which was removed from S. Paolo in Compito in Milan to the Archaeological museum, states that in his early youth he studied painting, but in his later years was occupied with other work besides art. Leonardo came to Milan in 1485, and Boltraffio became one of his ardent followers, conforming closely to his master's designs in his early work. He was a distinguished portraitist. In 15oo he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece (now in the Louvre) for the church of the Misericordia, near Bologna, by Giacomo Casio, a merchant and poet, whose portrait Boltraffio painted several times (Chatsworth, England; Brera Gallery, City of Milan). The National Gallery, London, possesses a "Madonna and Child" which, according to Morelli, is the master's best work, two pictures from the Salting Bequest and a portrait from the Mond Collection. Other works are in Milan (Brera Gallery and Poldi-Pezzoli Collection), Ber gamo and in the Borromean palace on the Isola Bella. In Rome he painted a fresco in the church of S. Onofrio representing the "Madonna with the Founder" (1513). In the Nuns' Choir of San Maurizio, Milan, are 26 medallions of holy women painted in fresco by Boltraffio. His drawings can be studied in the Ambrosi ana, Milan.
See G. Vasari, Le Vite de' ... pittori (Munich, 1911 ; Eng. trans. 1912) ; I. Lermolieff (Morelli) , Galleria Borghese e Doria Pamfili (189o) ; G. Carotti, Le Gallerie Nazionale Italiane IV. (1899) ; J. P. Richter, Mond Collection (191o) ; F. Malaguzzi Valeri, La Corte di Lodovico it Moro (1923).