Macrino d'Alba

The lack of documentary sources on Macrino who is believed to have been born in Alba has led in the past to many dubious attributions of works from the Piedmont area to this painter.

Even so, the actual formation of Macrino was obtained from his study of Tuscan and Umbrian masters such as Luca Signorelli and Perugino who worked at the papal seat.

Macrino was an eminently eclectic painter and an extraordinary assimilator of aesthetic trends that had developed in Rome and Tuscany and had given birth to the Italian Renaissance.

There he must have learned the use of bright colours and the placing of his scenes among bold Renaissance architecture and landscapes rich in Roman ruins and "antiques".

He achieved an artistic high-point in the altarpiece of the Virgin Enthroned between SS John the Baptist and James, a Bishop Saint and St Jerome (1503, Casale Monferrato, Santuario Crea).