\paperw19995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 Italian painter. \par
A native of Florence, the painter owed his nickname to the red color of his hair. Trained in the work
shop of Andrea del Sarto, his study of MichelangeloÆs cartoons for the \i Battle of Cascina\i0 played a fundamental role in the artistÆs development. In 1517 he painted the fresco with the \i Assumption of the Virgin\i0 in the cloister of Santissima An
nunziata at Florence, where the artist worked with Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo. A year later he received the commission for the altarpiece representing the \i Madonna with Saints\i0 for the church of Ognissanti (Florence, Uffizi), a work which already
displays the bizarre and expressive characteristics of his style, derived from a meditation on the art of Northern Europe and the sculpture of Donatello. The \i Deposition\i0 in Volterra dates from 1521: here the violent and surreal colors and the cita
tions of Michelangelo seem to suggest that the painter may have already seen the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. From 1524 to 1527 the painter was in Rome, where he painted the frescoes in the church of Santa Maria della Pace. Fleeing the city following
its sack by a section of the imperial army, the painter traveled around Tuscany and Umbria, leaving the suggestive and disturbing \i Lamentation over the Dead Christ\i0 at Borgo San Sepolcro. Moving to France in 1530, Rosso and a number of other Italian
artists were commissioned to decorate the palace of Fontainebleau by King Francis I. Rosso was entrusted with the decoration of the pavilion of Pomona and the gallery of Francis I, in collaboration with Primaticcio. The presence in France of the restles
s Florentine artist, one of the greatest painters of the sixteenth century, played an important role in the diffusion of Mannerism in Europe.
