- published: 18 Feb 2008
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Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio (c. 1430 – February 1479) was an Italian painter from Messina, Sicily, active during the Italian Renaissance. His work shows strong influences from Early Netherlandish painting and, unusually for a painter from Southern Italy, he was influential on the art of Northern Italy, especially Venice.
Antonello was born at Messina around 1429-1431, to Giovanni de Antonio Mazonus and Garita (Margherita). He was probably apprenticed both in his native city and in Palermo.
Around the year 1450, according to a 1524 letter of the Neapolitan humanist Pietro Summonte, he was a pupil of the painter Niccolò Colantonio at Naples, at the time one of the most active centres of Renaissance arts.