Fortune (e sfortune) di Lorenzo Fasolo

The article traces the fortune and misfortune of the Lombard painter Lorenzo Fasolo (1462/63-1516), active in Lombardy (mainly in Pavia, his native city) and in Liguria, from the two last decades of the 15th century until his death. Not mentioned by Raffaele Soprani, the name of the painter (remembered only in local handwritten sources, during the 17th century, in Chiavari) reapperead in the late 18th century with Carlo Giuseppe Ratti and Luigi Lanzi, but it was especially from the second half of the 19th century, with the important contributions by Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle and Federigo Alizeri, that his documental and stylistic image became more precise. In the first decades of the 20th century other documents, from the Lombard activity, were published by Rodolfo Maiocchi, but in general the painter didn't attract very much the attention of the scholars. The discovery, after the 1970s, of some remarkable and unknown works (especially the frescoes in the Monte di Pietà in Savona) have led the scholars to better assess this master's importance and artistic significance. This change of vision is evident in the evolution of the interpretations by Gian Vittorio Castelnovi and in the important contributions by Bruno Barbero, Francesco Frangi, Anna De Floriani, Gianluca Zanelli, and others. Fasolo played a not minor role in the development of the Renaissance culture between Lombardy, Liguria and Piedmont, combining elements from Vincenzo Foppa, Ambrogio Bergognone and Bernardo Zenale and affinities with Ligurian and Piedmontese artists, such as Luca Baudo and Gandolfino da Roreto.