Giovanni Battista Moroni

Giovanni Battista Moroni, also known as Giambattista Moroni (c. 1520–1524 – 5 February 1578) was an Italian painter of the Mannerist school. Best known for his elegantly realistic portraits of the local nobility and clergy, he is considered one of the great portrait painters of the Cinquecento.

Moroni was the son of architect Andrea Moroni. He trained under Alessandro Bonvicino in Brescia, where he was the main studio assistant during the 1540s, and worked in Trento, Bergamo and his home town of Albino, near Bergamo, where he was born and died. His two short periods in Trento coincided with the first two sessions of the Council of Trent, 1546–48 and 1551–53. On both occasions Moroni painted a number of religious works (including the altarpiece of the Doctors of the Church for the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Bergamo) as well as the series of portraits for which he is remembered.

During his stay in Trento he also made contact with Titian and the Count-Bishop, Cristoforo Madruzzo, whose own portrait is by Titian, but for whom Moroni painted portraits of Madruzzo's sons.