Domenico Mona

Domenico Mona (also called Moni, Monna, or Monio) (1550–1602) was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance period, born in Ferrara.

His biographer Cesare Cittadella (1782) describes a stormy early manhood, wherein Mona, born to a prestigious family, chose to become a cloistered monk at the Certosa of Ferrara.

He finally entered the studio of his godfather, the painter Giuseppe Mazzuoli, where he:saw how through an excellent paintbrush, they represented the truth without deceit, they never arrived at too fantastic a metaphysics, or to an excessively vain and blind medicine, or a corrupt jurisprudence.

He painted three large altarpieces for the church of San Francesco in Ferrara.

However, his temper caused him to attack a visiting papal legate, and he had to flee to Bologna, then Modena and Parma, for safety.