DOSSO DOSSI, GIOVANNI (I479—I542), Italian painter, the head of the Ferrarese school in the i 6th century. His real name was Giovanni de Lutero. His father, Niccolo de Lutero, a native of Trent, settled at Ferrara, and Giovanni and his brother Battista (d. 1549) were probably born at Dosso, a village near Mantua. Vasari does not mention the name of their master, but according to Scannelli they studied under Lorenzo Costa, while Morelli suggests that their first teacher was G. Panetti. We know by documentary evidence that Battista was in Rome in 1519; there is, however, no proof that Dosso studied in Rome. His work is Ferrarese, though his colour is under Venetian in fluence. From 1514 Dosso was in the service of Alfonso d'Este. He painted portraits of the Este family, he decorated the ducal palaces and executed designs for tapestries and majolica. The two brothers Dossi, though not always on good terms with one another, often co-operated, as in the decoration of the ducal palace of Ferrara, of the palace of the Gonaagas at Mantua (1512), of the Villa Imperiale near Pesaro, and of the bishop's palace at Trent (1532). Dosso died at Ferrara shortly before Aug. ?7, 1542. He was a friend of his compatriot Ludovico Ariosto, and, like this great poet, loved to depict romantic scenes from pagan myths or from legends of Christian chivalry. His fantastic "Circe" in the Galleria Borghese might be an illustration of Ariosto's poetry. The admiration was reciprocal, for in the Orlando Furioso (xxxiii., 2) Dosso ranks with Leonardo, Michel angelo, Raphael, Titian, Bellini and Mantegna. Dosso was a poet in his colour schemes. His shadows are s aturated with colour, his lights sparkling and strong. He was an innovator in landscape painting, for he made the scenery take part in the drama en acted by the figures. Thus the background in the "Adoration of the Magi" (National Gallery, London) is illuminated by a supernatural light. Nearly all the frescoes of Dosso are much damaged or have perished. However, a number of oil paintings have survived. Besides those mentioned above the following are his chief works: the altarpiece in the cathedral of Modena rep resenting the "Madonna and Saints" ; the altarpiece of the cathe dral of Ferrara representing "St. Bartholomew and John the Baptist" which has passed into the Chigi collection; the "Four Fathers of the Church" in the Dresden gallery; that gallery also contains several pictures from the ducal palace of Ferrara, some by Dosso and others designed by him and completed by his brother and Girolamo Carpi. The gallery at Modena contains some fine examples and several of his works are at Hampton Court Palace.
See Vasari le Vite de pittori (ed. Milanesi, vol. v.) ; Laderchi, Stork; Pitt. (1795) ; I. Lermolieff (Morelli), Galleria Borghese e Doria Pamfili and Galleria a Dresden; E. Gardner, The Painters of the School of Ferrara Ow') ; C. Zwanziger, Dosso, Dossi (1911); H. Mendelsohn Dosso Dossi (1913) . (I. A. R.)