Nicolò Brancaleon

Nicolò Brancaleon (c.1460 – after 1526) was a painter born in Venice, who adopted the art style in Ethiopia from the reign of Baeda Maryam onwards.

[1] E. A. Wallis Budge, in his preface to the second edition of his translation of the Kebra Nagast, claims that Brancaleon was a monk who had come to Ethiopia to convert Emperor Zara Yaqob and debated Abba Giyorgis several times on religious matters;[2] (Wallis Budge may have misremembered James Bruce's statement about Abba Giyorgis's opponent in that religious debate, "We are not informed of the name of Abba George's antagonist, but he is thought to have been a Venetian painter, who lived many years after in Abyssinia, and, it is believed, died there"—explicitly identifying him as Brancaleon in a footnote.

[3]) Francisco Álvares, who met Brancaleon while accompanying the Portuguese ambassador on his mission to Lebna Dengel in the 1520s, wrote that "they say he was a monk before he came to this country".

Crawford located to the southwest of modern Addis Ababa), Suriano found 14 Europeans residing at the court, among whom was "Master Nicolo Branchalion".

"Brancaleon's images of the martyrdom of Saint George and of the miracles of the Virgin Mary remained fashionable until the eighteenth century.