Renaissance man

Lorenzo Lotto’s portraits — nervous, intense and enigmatic — are among the most memorable to be painted in 16th-century Italy, but his fellow Venetians didn’t see it that way. In a letter to Lotto of 1548, the poet and satirist Pietro Aretino wrote that he was ‘outclassed in the profession of painting’ by Titian.

Now, though, with an exhibition of his portraits in store at the National Gallery next year, it looks as though Lotto’s time may finally have come.

On a bright day this autumn my wife and I went on the trail of this most fascinating and idiosyncratic of Renaissance artists. Our goal was Cingoli, in the foothills of the Apennines, which likes to refer to itself as the ‘balcony of the Marche’ because of the view over the plain and extending — allegedly, on a fine day — right across the Adriatic to Croatia. Better still, if you love art, the town is home to a great painting: Lotto’s ‘Madonna of the Rosary’ (1539).