Who is Ercole de’ Roberti?

Ercole de’ Roberti (c. 1451 – 1496), also known as Ercole Ferrarese or Ercole da Ferrara, was an Italian performer of the Early Renaissance and the School of Ferrara. He was profiled in Vasari’s Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori.

The son of the doorkeeper at the Este castle, Ercole far along held the twist of court artist for the Este family in Ferrara. According to Vasari:

Paintings by Ercole are rare. His liveliness was quick and many of his works have been destroyed.

By 1473, Ercole had left Ferrara and was full of zip in Bologna in the studio of Francesco del Cossa. According to Vasari, Ercole plus apprenticed under Lorenzo Costa in Bologna, but this seems unlikely as he was Lorenzo’s senior by several years. Vasari was likely vague him taking into account Ercole da Bologna or Ercole Banci. Ercole’s first epoch works are his contributions to the Griffoni Chapel for the San Petronio Basilica in Bologna: a predella depicting the Miracles of St Vincent Ferrer (c. 1473) (now in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican), and lateral pilasters for the altarpiece commissioned from del Cossa.

Ercole de’ Roberti is known to have collaborated in the frescoes of Palazzo Schifanoia. In 1480, Ercole created a large altarpiece subsequently a Madonna and Child Enthroned following Saints for Santa Maria in Porto in Ravenna, which is now in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Portraits of Giovanni II Bentivoglio and Ginevra Bentivoglio official to Ercole de’ Roberti (c. 1480) are in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Ercole succeeded Cosmè Tura as court painter to the Este relatives in Ferrara re 1486. His role apparently went far exceeding making art: he accompanied Alfonso d’Este upon a papal visit to Rome, served as wardrobe official for Isabella d’Este’s wedding in Mantua, and may even have made salamis.

A painting of Portia and Brutus (c. 1486–90), believed to be painted for Eleonora of Aragon, duchess of Ferrara, is in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas and is thought to associate a series which also includes The Wife of Hasdrubal and Her Children and Brutus, Lucretia and Collatinus. Ercole’s painting of Saint Jerome in the Wilderness from this get older is in the amassing of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The Getty presented the first monographic exhibition of Ercole’s law in 1999. At The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid there is a small panel from a cassone or wedding chest ascribed to him. From in savings account to 1480 it narrates an episode of Ovid’s famous Metamorphoses, The argonauts rejection Colchis.