OAROFA'LO, the name by whioh Benvcnuto Tillie is commonly known, apparently from his adoption of a gilliflowor (garofalo) for his monogram. Garofalo is the most distinguished of the Ferrarese painters : he belongs however to the Roman school. lie was born in the Fermrese in 1481, and was first instructed in design by Domenico Pannetti, from whom ho wont to his uncle Niccolo Soriani at Cremona, After the death of his uncle in 1499, ho left Cremona and repaired in 1500 to Rome, where ho remained fifteen ?sleuths with Giovanni Baldini, and after visiting several other cities, ho spent two yearn with Lorenzo Costa at Mantua ; he then dwelt for a period of four years in Ferrara, and finally engaged himself with Raffaelle in Rome in 1508 (1505 in Vasari is a misprint, as the stated intervals evidently show).
Raffaells'e great powers and personal qualities excited in Garofalo, as in other painters, a species of enthusiastic veneration for him ; and Garofalo ever afterwards was a studious imitator of his style, even in his small works. He remained some years with Raffaelle in Rome, when he was called by domeatio affairs to Ferrara. He intended to return to Raffaelle, but circumstances kept him in Ferrara. He was employed at Belriguardo and elsewhere on extensive works, together with the two Dossi, by the Duke Alfonso I. He executed many excel lent frescoes in Ferrara—the principal of which were those of San Francesco,' the 'Slaughter of the Innocents,' the 'Resurrection of Lazarus,' and others, painted about 1519-24: they still exist. There are also some excellent frescoes by him still preserved in the Palazzo del Magistrate. Garofalo's oil-paintings are frequent in picture
galleries : there are many at Rome in the Borghese gallery and in the Ghigi and Doria palaces • there are also some good specimens of his style in the galleries of Dresden and St. Petersburg, and there are two email pictures of average merit in the National Gallery—a Vision of St. Augustine' and a ' Holy Family.' His small pictures are very numerous : be appears to have had a predilection for small proportions; and with regard to these works, what /Ellen (' Var. Hist.,' iv. 3) says of Dionyaiva of Colophon respecting Polygnotua may be said of Garofalo respecting Raffaelle—he imitated his art in every respect except size. Garofalo however, though he imitated, did not equal Raffaelle even in technical practice, except perhaps in colour. He is more intense and more true in local tints than Raffaelle—hia red and green draperies are remarkably pure, and are quite fresh even to this day—but in execution generally he is dry ; his works are crude in effect, and have much of the ' quattrocentismo; or that crudity and dryness of design which characterise the majority of the works of the 15th century. Though he was very successful in the execution of the distinct objects or features of his works independently, he failed in uniting the parts— in harmonising the whole : he wants aerial perspective and tone. He died in 1559, having been for the last few years of his life quite blind.
(Vasari, Vile de' Piltori, Sc.; Lanzi, Scoria Pittoriect, &a)