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Antonio Maria da Villafora
( fl Padua, 1469; d Padua, 1511). Italian illuminator. His place of origin is cited as ‘Villa Fuora Territorii Policinis’; the surname Sforza, sometimes attributed to him, belonged only to his adopted son Bartolomeo. Antonio Maria is mentioned in a document of 1482 among the illuminators of the law faculty at Padua University, and numerous payments were made to him there during the years 1481–1511 for the decoration of philosophical and legal texts, mostly commissioned by Pietro Barozzi, Bishop of Padua (1487–1507). Although they were produced in the Veneto, these manuscripts have strong Ferrarese characteristics, which have convinced some scholars that the artist was of Emilian origin, but there is no evidence for his identification with the Antonio Maria Casanova documented in Ferrara in 1470 and 1475, nor for the inclusion of three Olivetan graduals (Modena, Bib. Estense, MSS lat. 1013, 1014, 1022) among his early works (Mariani Canova, 1987). There is no doubt, however, about the Ferrarese background to his work, which shows the influence of Guglielmo Giraldi and especially Franco dei Russi, in whose workshop he may have been trained. Antonio Maria was also evidently acquainted with the Roverella Decretals of Gratian (Ferrara, Mus. Civ. A. Ant. Pal. Schifanoia), which was printed in Venice by Jenson in 1474 and probably illuminated in the Veneto by Ferrarese artists.
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