Palma

Palma, JACOPO, commonly called PALMA VECCHIO (i.e. Old Palma), painter of the Venetian school, was born about 1480 at Serinalta, near Bergamo, and died at Venice just about the middle of the year 1528. At first working under the influence of the Bellinis, he subsequently painted in the spirit and style of Giorgione and Titian, and may be placed at the head of the second class of great Venetian artists. His pictures are either sacred subjects or portrait groups. Of the former the best are a series of six figures of saints, St Barbara and others, in the church of St Maria Formosa at Venice. The best portrait group is three sisters, generally called the 'Three Graces.'—His brother's grandson, likewise called JACOPO (1544-1628), and nicknamed IL GIOVANE (the Younger), painted religious pictures of greatly inferior merit, though he modelled his style on that of Titian, Palma Vecchio, and Tintoretto. Except for eight years in Rome, he spent all his life at Venice.