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Virgin of Humility, adored by a prince of the House of Este, 1440. Notice the Pseudo-Kufic mantle hem. Louvre Museum.

Jacopo Bellini (c. 1400 – c. 1470) was one of the founders of the Renaissance style of painting in Venice and northern Italy. His sons Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and his son-in-law Andrea Mantegna, were also famous painters.

Few of Bellini's paintings still exist, but his surviving sketch-books (one in the British Museum and one in the Louvre) show an interest in landscape and elaborate architectural design and are his most important legacy. His surviving works show how he accommodated linear perspective to the decorative patterns and rich colors of Venetian painting.


Madonna with child
Madonna and Child Blessing (c.1455) 94 x 66 cm
Tempera on wood, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.

Born in Venice, Jacopo had probably been a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano, who was then in Venice. In 1411–1412 he was in Foligno, where with Gentile he worked at the Palazzo Trinci frescoes. In 1423 Bellini was in Florence, where he knew the new works by Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masolino da Panicale and Masaccio. In 1424 he opened a workshop in Venice, which he ran right up until his death, and which trained his sons and other artists.




Giovanni Fontana showed Bellini a treatise on perspective.[2]


  1. ^ Chisholm 1911.
  2. ^ A.C. Sparavigna (2013). "Giovanni de la Fontana, engineer and magician" (PDF). Cornell University Library.


  • C. Eisler, The genius of Jacopo Bellini: the complete paintings and drawings (London, The British Museum Press, 1989)
  • Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bellini" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

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