PORDENONE, IL (1483-1539), Italian painter of the Venetian school. He was born at Corticelli, near Pordenone, in Friuli. His real name was Giovanni Antonio de Sacchi. Vasari's statement that his family name was Licinio has been disproved. In 1535 King John of Hungary knighted him, and thenceforth he called himself Regillo. Il Pordenone was a pupil of Pellegrino di S. Daniele, of the Friulian school of painting, but the leading influence which formed his style was that of Giorgione, and in his early works, such as his fine altarpiece at Susegana and the frescoes in the Palace chapel of S. Salvatore, this influence is very apparent. His later work displays the influence of Correggio and Michelangelo. He executed many works at Pordenone, Spilim bergo, and elsewhere in Friuli. He worked in Treviso, Mantua, Genoa and Cremona. He was asked to execute large mural designs in Venetian palaces, and was so popular in Venice that he seems to have fancied himself the equal of Titian. On one occasion the
senate gave him a commission in preference to the great master of Cadore. Unfortunately, his fresco work in Venice has perished. In 1529 he worked in Piacenza, where is one of his most celebrated pictures "St. Catherine disputing with the Doctors of Alex andria." By Hercules II. of Ferrara he was commissioned to execute a series of designs for tapestry illustrating the Odyssey. These were described in detail by Ridolfi but are no longer extant. That duke invited him to Ferrara, in 1538, to execute some work in perspective, but Pordenone died there soon after his arrival and was buried on Jan. 14, 1539. Of his pictures in the Venetian academy "The Glory of S. Lorenzo Giustiniani" is the most notable.
See C. Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell' Arte (edit. v. Hadeln, 1914-24).