Antonello da Messina

Antonello da Messina is a famous Renaissance painter. Born around 1429/1430 in Messina, where he also died in 1479. In Naples he learned the Old Netherlandish technique of resin oil painting and contributed to its spread in Italy. Antonello’s works are appreciated above all for the artist’s ability to express liveliness and emotion. He understood how to combine the more rational Italian school with the attention to detail and subtle lighting effects of the old Netherlandish style of painting. In the Museo Comunale Mandralisca in Cefalù you can view one of the few surviving works: Portrait of an Unknown Man (1465-1470). In the Regional Museum in Messina the polyptych of St. Gregory (1473), consisting of five paintings can be admired. His most famous painting, The Annunciation (1473), as well as three wooden panels on a gold background, can be seen in the Sicilian Regional Gallery in Palermo.