Ortolano

Ortolano was an Italian painter of the Ferrara School, active in the Renaissance period.

He was baptized Giovanni Battista Benvenuti, and he was called L'Ortolano because his father, Francisco, was a gardener.

Of his career little is known, save that he was a diligent student of the works of Raphael and Bagnacavallo in 1512–1513 in Bologna.

For the church of San Niccoló he painted in 1520 the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus with several Saints; for Santa Maria de' Servi the Nativity and in San Lorenzo, the Adoration of the Magi.

In the cathedral at Ferrara are other works attributed to him, which later critics have given to Il Garofalo, but in some of the smaller churches of Ferrara, those of San Niccolò, the Servi and San Lorenzo, there are pictures which may be readily accepted as his.