Giovanni Battista Maganza

Giovanni Battista Maganza (c. 1513–August 25, 1586) was a late Renaissance Italian painter and poet, from Vicenza in the area of Calaone, mainly producing religious altarpieces for local churches.

Biography

Altarpiece for church of San Giorgio, Vicenza

Maganza was also a poet and a friend of Andrea Palladio. He visited Rome between 1546 and 1547 and also met Gian Giorgio Trissino and the poet Marco Thiene, he was member of the Accademia Olimpica (Olympic Academy) in Venice where he designed costumes for the play Oedipus Rex, the first opera presented at the Palladio-designed Teatro Olimpico.[1]

He made poets, composed satire in the Pavan dialect under the pseudonym Magagnò.

His son Alessandro Maganza was also a prominent local painter. Fontana cites Lanzi and Zanetti as Maganza's dates of birth and death as 1509 and 1589[2] Giovanni De Mio was one of his pupils.

Works

Partial listing:

San Girolamo penitente (Saint Jerome Penitent) (1570),[3] San Marco in San Girolamo church, Vicenza
Pala del Rosario (1583), Montebello Vicentino church.
La conversione di S.Paolo (Conversion of Saint Paul) (16th century), at the large altar of the Novale di Valdagno church, Vicenza.
Frescoes in Villa Repeta and Campigila dei Berici.[4]