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Volpato [Volpati], Giovanni Battista
(b Bassano del Grappa, 1633; d Bassano del Grappa, 1706). Italian painter and writer. He was at the centre of a 17th-century revival of the art of Jacopo Bassano and established the division of Jacopo’s stylistic evolution into four periods, prizing most highly the works of the 1540s. In 1671 Volpato executed a series of canvases for the church of S Daniele at Lamon and the portrait of the Podesta Boldù Seated in Council (Feltre, Mus. Civ.). The latter is, unusually, free of the influence of Bassano; its refined style is closer to that of Nicolas Régnier. In 1672 Volpato decorated the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in Feltre Cathedral with a series of canvases (in situ): the Annunciation, God the Father, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Last Supper and a Glory with Angels. He was paid for these, secretly, by the bishop, Bartolommeo Gera, with two canvases by Bassano, stolen from the villages of Tomo and Rasai: the Virgin and Child Enthroned, with SS James and John and the Virgin Enthroned, with SS Martin and Anthony Abbot (both Munich, Alte Pin.). Copies of these by Volpato were substituted but the fraud was discovered and in 1686 Volpato was tried and found guilty. Other works by Volpato include the decoration of the vault of Bassano Cathedral in 1689 with the Assumption of the Virgin, Martyrdom of St Clement and St Bassian, as well as a contribution to the decoration of the Villa Rezzonico, Bassano, and two works painted in Venice: a Pentecost and an Adoration of the Shepherds (both c. 1687; Venice, S Maria del Giglio). Volpato’s writings are kept, largely unpublished, at the Biblioteca Comunale at Bassano del Grappa.
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