CAROTO or CAROTTO, GIOVANNI FRANCESCO (c. 148o-1555), Italian painter of the Veronese school. He was a pupil of Liberale and worked for some time, so Vasari says, under Mantegna at Mantua. His later works betray the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, and of Raphael and the Roman school. In spite of plagiarisms, however, his art is essentially Veronese in colour, in the character of the figures and in the treatment of landscape, in which he was something of an innovator, for he seems to have loved trees and fields and flowing waters for their own sakes, and not merely as a background to human interests. Vasari says that Caroto, after having established a certain reputa tion at Verona, went to Milan in 1505, and was there engaged on work for Antonio M. Visconti. Between 1513 and 1518 he was employed at Casale Monferrato. But the greater part of his life was spent at Verona, where he decorated the churches with fres coes and painted altar-pieces and smaller pictures, some of which are now in the Pinacoteca Communale.
His early work recalls the style of his masters, Liberale and Mantegna; "The Madonna in a Landscape with Lemon Trees," dated 1501 in the gallery at Modena; the "Madonna" in the Staedel at Frankfurt, and a "Madonna" in the Louvre at Paris. A fresco signed and dated 15o8 of the "Annunciation" reveals Caroto as a follower of Leonardo, whose work he must have seen at Milan. Another Leonardesque picture is the fine "Madonna and Child flanked by two Angels carrying Lilies," at Dresden, re ceived at that gallery with a forged signature of Leonardo until Morelli identified it as a work of Caroto. In his later work the artist becomes Raphaelesque in his design. This is the case in the fine frescoes in the church of S. Eufemia at Verona, repre senting stories of the angel Raphael, and in the altarpiece painted for the same church, of which the central panel, with large fig ures of three archangels, is now in the Pinacoteca. Another mas terpiece is the picture in S. Fermo Maggiore (1528) with the Vir gin and St. Anne in the clouds and four saints standing beneath in a fine landscape. "The Raising of Lazarus" (1531) in the Palazzo Arcivescovile and the St. Ursula (1535) in S. Giorgio in Braida, are among his last pictures. Outside Verona there are works by the master at Milan (Castello), Mantua (Chiesa Virgiliana), Flor ence (Offizi, Pitti), Fiesole (Villa Doccia), Modena, Bergamo, Paris, Dresden and Budapest. Caroto also decorated the facades of houses, and it is said that his work can still be seen on one of the houses on the Piazza Erbe. He modelled some medals of fine quality (medal for Bonifazio Palaelogo of Monferrato).