Francesco Villamena

Villamena, Francesco (Italian painter, draftsman, and engraver, ca. 1566-1624)

Villamena, Francesco

(b Assisi, 1564; d Rome, 7 July 1624).

Italian engraver. According to tradition, he was a pupil of Cornelis Cort, whose engravings he copied, and was associated in his youth with Agostino Carracci. He made few original engravings but reproduced designs of artists including Raphael, Paolo Veronese, Federico Barocci, Girolamo Muziano and Giulio Romano. His output also included frontispieces and book illustrations. Closely related to such northern late adherents of Mannerism as Hendrick Goltzius and Jacques Bellange, he employed an elegant and expressive calligraphic style with perfect control of the burin. In addition to religious and historical subjects, he executed portraits, notably a series of genre figures (Rome, Gab. N. Stampe). In 1594 he executed a series of engravings illustrating scenes from the Life of St Francis. His oeuvre comprised at least 100 plates.

(Françoise Jestaz. "Villamena, Francesco." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed January 20, 2016, http://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2154/subscriber/article/grove/art/T089640.)