Fra’ Damiano Zambelli da Bergamo

Damiano Zambelli was born into a family of master carpenters from Bergamo c. 1480. After training in Venice, he joined the Dominican convent of Santi Stefano e Domenico in Bergamo as a lay brother. In 1520 he and his family made the inlaid stalls for the choir in the chancel of the convent church. On taking full vows c. 1527–8, Fra’ Damiano “da Bergamo” (as he was wont to sign his work) moved to the convent of San Domenico in Bologna where he was involved in embellishing the church, making the reredos for the friars’ chancel, the furnishings for the Chapel of St. Dominic and a monumental choir comprising 104 stalls, which kept him busy until the year he died. He based the stylistic composition of the religious scenes depicted in the panels on printed engravings and preparatory cartoons produced by such artists as Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, Biagio Pupini, Baldassarre Peruzzi and Girolamo da Treviso, also achieving magnificent illusionistic effects on his surfaces thanks to the colouring of the woods he used and to the addition of various other materials. His inlay work was so widely appreciated thanks to these features that he even made self-standing “inlay pictures” for such influential collectors and admirers as Charles V, Alfonso d’Este, Paul III, Francesco Guicciardini, Claude d’Urfé and Sabba da Castiglione.