Niccolò Frangipane (Tarcento 1550/5-1600)

This picture is one of a small number of allegorical works by Niccolò Frangipane, who was recorded as working in Venice and the Marches in the later 16th century. As well as receiving significant commissions for churches in and around the Veneto, he produced comical and satirical pictures that had much in common with the Campi family in Cremona. This canvas shows an awareness of Giorgione, and can be compared to the Portrait of Giovanni Borgherini and Niccolò Leonico Tomeo, attributed to Giorgione in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The iconography is intriguing but its meaning remains elusive: the symbols may be alchemical notations, and the figure on the left perhaps shows Hermes Trismegistus, the supposed author of the Hermetica, which discuss spirituality, astrology, alchemy and the divine.