Antonio Vivarini (c. 1440 – 1480) was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

-late Gothic period, who worked mostly in the Republic of Venice

Republic of Venice

The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

. He is probably the earliest of a family of painters including sibling his younger brother Bartolomeo and Antonio's son Alvise Vivarini

Alvise Vivarini

Alvise or Luigi Vivarini, , was an Italian painter, the leading Venetian artist before Giovanni Bellini. Like Bellini, he was part of a dynasty of painters. His father was Antonio Vivarini and his uncle, with whom he may have trained, was Bartolomeo Vivarini...

.

He initially trained with Andrea da Murano, and his works show the influence of Gentile da Fabriano

Gentile da Fabriano

Gentile da Fabriano was an Italian painter known for his participation in the International Gothic style. He worked in various places in central Italy, mostly in Tuscany. His best known works are his Adoration of the Magi and the Flight into Egypt.-Biography:Gentile was born in or near Fabriano,...

. The earliest known date of a picture of his, an altar-piece in the Accademia

Accademia

The Accademia is a museum gallery of pre-19th century art in Venice, northern Italy. Situated on the south bank of the Grand Canal, within the sestiere of Dorsoduro, it gives its name to one of the three bridges across the canal, the Ponte dell'Accademia, and to the boat landing station for the...

 is 1440; the latest, in the Lateran

Lateran Palace

The Lateran Palace , formally the Apostolic Palace of the Lateran , is an ancient palace of the Roman Empire and later the main Papal residence....

 museum, 1464, but he appears to have been alive in 1470.He worked in company his brother in law, Giovanni d'Alemagna

Giovanni d'Alemagna

Giovanni d'Alemagna was a German painter, active in Italy, who collaborated with his brother-in-law Antonio Vivarini on various important religious paintings in Venice and Padua....

 (also known as "Joannes de Alemania", who has also been regarded as a brother (Giovanni of Murano), but no trace of this painter exists of a date later than 1447. After 1447 Antonio painted either alone or in combination with his younger brother Bartolommeo. The works of Antonio are well drawn for their epoch, with a certain noticeable degree of softness, and with good flesh and other tints. He was likely influenced by Mantegna

Andrea Mantegna

Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

, and worked with him in the Ovetari Chapel

Ovetari Chapel

The Ovetari Chapel is a chapel in the right arm of the Church of the Eremitani in Padua. It is renowned for a Renaissance fresco cycle by Andrea Mantegna and others, painted from 1448 to 1457. The cycle was destroyed by an Allied bombing in 1944: today, only two scenes and a few fragments survive,...

 in 1450-1451. It is sometimes difficult to assign authorship for works from the Vivarini studio.

Three of his principal paintings are the Virgin Enthroned with the Four Doctors of the Church, the Coronation of the Virgin and Sts Peter and Jerome. The first two (in which Giovanni co-operated) are in the Venetian academy, the third in the National Gallery, London

National Gallery, London

The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...

. This gallery contains also specimens of the two under-named painters.