Il Pordenone
Italian painter (1484-1539)
Pordenone, Il Pordenone in Italian, is the byname of Giovanni Antonio de’ Sacchis (c. 1484 – 14 January 1539), an Italian Mannerist painter, loosely of the Venetian school. Vasari, his main biographer, wrongly identifies him as Giovanni Antonio Licinio. He painted in several cities in northern Italy "with speed, vigor, and deliberate coarseness of expression and execution—intended to shock".
He appears to have visited Rome, and learnt from its High Renaissance masterpieces, but lacked a good training in anatomical drawing. Like Polidoro da Caravaggio, he was one of the artists often commissioned to paint the exteriors of buildings; of such work at most a shadow survives after centuries of weather. Michelangelo is said to have approved of one palace facade in 1527; it is now only known from a preparatory drawing. Much of his work was lost when the Doge's Palace in Venice was largely destroyed by fires in 1574 and 1577. A number of fresco cycles survive, for example part of one at Cremona Cathedral, where his Passion scenes have a violence hardly repeated until Goya. Another cycle was at the Scuola Grande della Carità in Venice, now the Gallerie dell'Accademia, the main art museum, where he worked with the young Tintoretto.
His life was as energetic and restless as his art; he married three times, and was accused in court of hiring criminals to kill his brother to avoid sharing their inheritance.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Il Pordenone” as italian painter (1484-1539). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as italian painter (1484-1539). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q983352. VIAF identifies the subject as 79122046. The Library of Congress control number is n80094320. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1484, 1539, 1527 and 1574.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Il Pordenone”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Il Pordenone primary sources, Il Pordenone archive and Pordenone research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Il Pordenone”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Il Pordenone” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.