Giulio Bonasone

Giulio Bonasone, Portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti at 72, 1546

Giulio Bonasone (c. 1498 – after 1574) (or Giulio de Antonio Buonasone or Julio Bonoso) was an Italian painter and engraver. He was born at Bologna, where he worked from 1521 to 1574. He studied painting under Lorenzo Sabbatini. He painted a Purgatory for the church of San Stefano. He is better known as an engraver, training with Marcantonio Franceschini.

Among his portraits are those of the following:

1. Cardinal Pietro Bembo after Titian.
2. Pope Marcellus II
3. Philippus Hispaniarum princeps, Caroli V.
4. Raphael d'Urbino and Michelangelo Buonarroti
5. Francisca Flori Antwerpiani inter Belgos pictoris
6. Cardinal Niccolò Ardinghelli.

Among his engravings on devotional and mythologic topics are:

1. Adam & Eve, Adam tilling & Eve spinning, Holy Family, Nativity, and Resurrection based on his own designs.
2. The Passion (29 plates); entitled Passio Donini inri Jesu Christi based on his own designs.
3. Life of the Virgin (13 plates) based on his own designs.
4. Adam & Eve driven from Paradise; after Amico Aspertini.
5. St. George, Holy family, and Nativity, and after Giulio Romano.
6. Solomon, David, and Jesse; Last Judgement, Creation of Eve from the Sistine Chapel
7. Judith with her Servant coming out of the Tent of Holofernes
8. Miracle of the Manna and Moses striking rock, on same plate, and a Nativity after Parmigianino.
9. Presentation of Virgin with Sts Joachim & Anne (1546); Sts Peter & John healing lame; Virgin & child above St. Paul preaching; and Niobe & her Children (1541) after Perino del Vaga.
10. Dead Christ seated on the Tomb, supported by Angels with Virgin Mary and St. John; after Polidoro da Caravaggio.
11. St. Cecilia, Christ meeting St. Peter, St. Peter made Head of Church, Noah coming out of Ark, Joseph sold by his Brethren, The cup found in Benjamin's sack (1532), and Entombment of Christ with Virgin after Raphael
12. Nativity of John the Baptist; after Pontormo.
13. Entombment of Christ (1563) after Titian.
14. Alexander with Bucephalus and Roxana; Apollo in his Car with Hours & Time walking on crutches; Triumph of Cupid & Psyche; Scipio wounded, retiring from battleand Clelia with one of her companions, on Horseback escaping from Camp of Porsena by his own designs
15. Twenty plates on the History of Juno, with Italian verses
16. The Fall of Phaeton and Three female figures with Veils; after Michelangelo
17. Shipwreck of Aeneas; after Parmigianino.
18. The Roman Charity; a frieze of Polidoro da Caravaggio.
19. Mars and Venus and Achilles dragging body of Hector; after Primaticcio
20. Sack of Troy (1545).
21. Rape of Europa and Venus attended by the Graces; after Raphael.
22. Birth of Adonis (1586).
23. A Triumph of Bacchus (1531–1574).

References

• Bryan, Michael (1886). Robert Edmund Graves, ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (Volume I: A-K). York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007: George Bell and Sons. p. 151.
• Mercedes Ceron, 'Collecting Prints by Giulio Bonasone in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain,' Print Quarterly, XXXI, June 2014, pp. 155–167.