Timoteo Viti sometimes called Timoteo della Viti or Timoteo da Urbino, was an Italian

Italian people

The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 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...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, who was closely associated with Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

, who was fourteen years his junior.

Career

Born in Urbino

Urbino

Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482...

, Viti was the grandson of the painter Antonio Alberti

Antonio Alberti

Antonio Alberti was an Italian painter, active mainly in 15th century in his native city of Ferrara, as well as Bologna and Urbino.He painted portraits and devotional topics. For the sacristy of the church of San Bernardino, outside Urbino, he painted a Madonna and Child enthroned...

; his father was also a painter. According to Vasari and Malvasia

Count Carlo Cesare Malvasia

Carlo Cesare Malvasia was an Italian scholar and art historian from Bologna, best known for his biographies of Baroque artists titled Felsina pittrice, vite de’ pittori bolognesi, published in 1678....

, Viti was apprenticed to Francesco Francia in Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

 between 1490 and 1495; aspects of Viti's style would seem to confirm an apprenticeship in Bologna. In 1495 he returned to Urbino and replaced Giovanni Santi

Giovanni Santi

Giovanni Santi was an Italian painter and decorator, father of Raphael. He was born at Colbordolo in the Duchy of Urbino. He was a petty merchant for a time; he then studied under Piero della Francesca. He was influenced by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and seems to have been an assistant and friend of...

, the recently-deceased father of Raphael, as painter to the small but brilliant court there. He completed paintings of the Muses in the Ducal Palace that Santi had left unfinished.
The precocious Raphael, who was eleven at his father's death, continued to run his father's workshop with help from his family. It has often been speculated that Viti contributed to Raphael's training. In any case they remained friends, and Viti obtained or inherited the most important group of Raphael's studio drawings, which his descendents sold to Pierre Crozat

Pierre Crozat

thumb|265px|[[Rembrandt]]'s painting [[Danaë |Danae]] from Crozat's collection.Pierre Crozat was a French art collector at the center of a broad circle of cognoscenti; he was the brother of Antoine Crozat....

 in the 17th century. Drawings have often been disputed between the two artists in the past, and Viti has also been accused of forging some Raphael drawings (though it seems now accepted this was someone else).

In 1503 Viti was painting banners for Cesare Borgia

Cesare Borgia

Cesare Borgia , Duke of Valentinois, was an Italian condottiero, nobleman, politician, and cardinal. He was the son of Pope Alexander VI and his long-term mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei. He was the brother of Lucrezia Borgia; Giovanni Borgia , Duke of Gandia; and Gioffre Borgia , Prince of Squillace...

, who had expelled Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro

Guidobaldo da Montefeltro

thumb|240px|Portrait of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro by [[Raphael]].Guidobaldo da Montefeltro , also known as Guidobaldo I, was an Italian condottiero and the Duke of Urbino from 1482 to 1508.-Biography:...

 as lord of the city. Guidobaldo regained Urbino in 1504 and Viti, along with Girolamo Genga

Girolamo Genga

Girolamo Genga was an Italian painter and architect of the late Renaissance, Mannerist style.- Biography :Genga was born in 1507 in a region near Urbino. According mainly to Giorgio Vasari's biography, by age thirteen Genga had gained an apprenticeship in Orvieto under Luca Signorelli...

, was commissioned by Bishop Arrivabene to decorate the chapel of S Martino

Certosa di San Martino

The Certosa di San Martino is a former monastery complex, now a museum, in Naples, southern Italy. It is the most visible landmark of the city, perched atop the Vomero hill that commands the gulf. A Carthusian monastery, it was finished and inaugurated under the rule of Queen Joan I in 1368. It...

 in the cathedral. He continued to work successfully in the Marches for the rest of the decade, and as far south as Siena

Siena

Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...

, where he and Genga collaborated on paintings in the Palazzo Petrucci in about 1508.
Around 1514, Viti formed part of the large team assembled by Raphael and worked on the frescoes Raphael designed in the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria della Pace

Santa Maria della Pace

Santa Maria della Pace is a church in Rome, central Italy, not far from Piazza Navona.The current building was built on the foundations of the pre-existing church of Sant'Andrea de Aquarizariis in 1482, commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV. The church was rededicated to the Virgin Mary to remember a...

 in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. It has been suggested that he is depicted (as the Ancient Greek painter Protogenes) in The School of Athens

The School of Athens

The School of Athens, or in Italian, is one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1510 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms now known as the , in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican...

, Raphael's most famous work, standing next to Raphael's self-portrait

Self-portrait

A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...

, although Vasari does not mention this identification.

Raphael's mature style influenced him for a period afterwards, as can be seen in the large altarpiece of Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

 Appearing to Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...

, SS Michael the Archangel and Anthony Abbot (c. 1512) for the church of S Angelo Minore in Cagli

Cagli

Cagli is a town and comune in the province of Pesaro e Urbino, Marche, central Italy. It c. 30 km south of Urbino.-History:Cagli occupies the site of an ancient village on the Via Flaminia, which seems to have borne the name Cale, 24 miles north of Helvillum and 18 miles southwest of Forum...

 (Pesaro). In later works he rejected Raphael's influence and looked back to the art of the late 15th century. In his last paintings (such as the Mary Magdalene of 1521 in Gubbio Cathedral) his style became heavier, possibly as a result of the increasing intervention of pupils.

According to Vasari, Timoteo was an artist, a poet, and a musician. He was also politically active in Urbino. He served as magistrate in 1508 and chief magistrate in 1513. He died in Urbino.