Niccolò Antonio Colantonio

Colantonio (born Niccolò Antonio, c. 1420) was an Italian painter, known mainly for having been trainer to Antonello da Messina. Details of his life are obscure.

Colantonio's style was profoundly shaped by Flemish influence.

Colantonio flourished in Naples between 1440 and 1470. He was a student of René d'Anjou. His paintings show the mingling of several cultures, as Alfonso V of Aragon had brought to Naples artists from Iberia, Burgundy, Provence, and Flanders. He synthesised his own style from all these sources and he was one of the first artists in Southern Italy to learn Flemish oil painting techniques. He may have learnt these techniques from the Flemish artist Barthélemy d'Eyck — a putative relative of Jan van Eyck — who seems to have been in Naples around 1440.

His most notable work is St. Francis Consigns the Rule to His Followers (dated to 1445). This painting—for the altarpiece of a transept chapel—was inspired by a late thirteenth century fresco above the door of the Chapter House of San Lorenzo Maggiore in Naples, showing the saint giving his Rule to the Minor Friars and the Poor Clares. The fresco can be seen in the monastery Museum. The painting hangs in the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples with other examples of his work.

As well as teaching the Sicilian Antonello da Messina, Colantonio may have taught the Spaniard Pedro Berruguete.

References

• Borchert, Till-Holger; Manfred Sellink (2002). The Age of Van Eyck. The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting 1430-1530. London: Thames & Hudson. 
• Howell Jolly, Penny (2004). Jan van Eyck and St. Jerome: a study of Eyckian influence on Colantonio and Antonello da Messina in Quattrocento Naples. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.