Cosimo Tura

Cosmè Tura ( Cosimo Tura, * 1430 in Ferrara, † 1495 ) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. He was court painter to the Este in Ferrara and the founder and chief representative of the so-called Ferrarese school.

Life

Tura was trained as a painter at Francesco Squarcione, who was also the instructor Andrea Mantegna in Padua. From 1460 to 1495 he worked as a court painter in Ferrara under the Dukes Borso and Ercole I d' Este. As court painter, he was not only with the production of altarpieces for churches and chapels, busy with mythological images or frescoes, but he was also responsible for the organization and equipment of the court festivals and tournaments. Likewise, he was responsible for the crafts in Ferrara, by delivering the templates for rugs, tapestries and other textiles and furniture and rooms endowed with decor. His most important works include the frescoes of the cycle of the monthly pictures in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara. The large projects Turas have been either destroyed or removed from their original context. So are his allegorical figures (London, National Gallery; Gemäldegalerie Berlin ) are the only ingredients that have been preserved by his decorations studiolo in Belfiore ( 1458-63 ).

Style

Its rough but decorative style can be regarded as recording the International Gothic fashion as they were transmitted to him by Mantegna, Piero della Francesca and Andrea del Castagno.

Works

• Allegorical figures in London, the National Gallery and Art Gallery of Berlin ( 1458-63 )
• Rover Ella polyptych ( 1480 ); today in fragments: London, National Gallery; Rome, Colonna collection; Paris, Louvre; San Diego, the San Diego Museum of Art; New York, Metropolitan Museum; Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
• Organ lining ( 1469 ), Cathedral, Ferrara, badly damaged today: Museo del Duomo