( fl Venice, c. 1469–75). Italian illuminator. Stylistic evidence and visual clues, such as family crests on attributed works, indicate that he decorated printed books for Venetian typographers from 1469 and that he was active in Venice during the first half of the 1470s. The Master of the Putti’s manuscripts, for example a copy of Pliny (1472; Padua, Bib. Semin., MS. K.I.), are decorated with imagination and refinement all’antica, with touches of tempera, a technique that remained typical of his production. The antiquarian motifs of satyrs, epigraphs, sarcophagi, vases and putti, from which his name is derived, are taken from Classical reliefs of the Imperial period. There are close similarities to the drawings of Jacopo Bellini and to the work of Mantegna and precedents also in the antiquarian interests of the Venetian and Paduan illuminators of the preceding decade. Adopting the faceted initials favoured by the latter group, the Master created splendid mythological scenes. Another Paduan characteristic appears in his illusionistic frontispieces, where the text appears to be inscribed on a parchment scroll supported by architectural elements (see VENICE, §III, 1).

Part of the Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists family

• Putti, Master of the
  • Venice, §III, 1: Centre of production: Manuscripts, books and prints