Luini, Aurelio
Milan, h. 1530 - Milan, 1593Together with his brother Giovan Pietro, Luini was the perpetuator of the style of their father, the Milanese painter, Bernardino Luini (c. 1480/85-1532), whose premature death left his frescoes in S. Maurizio, Milan incomplete. Executed during the 1550s, they reflect the style both of his deceased father and that of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519); they were completed posthumously by his two sons. Subsequently, Luini excelled as the best of Milan's Mannerist painters, combining monumental figures with elegant gesticulation in works such as the Deposition for the church of S. Barnaba. In 1590 he painted the organ shutters of the cathedral in Milan, and the following year prepared drawings detailing the Life of S. Ambrogio, presumably for the choir stalls. Other cycles by Luini survive in various churches in Lombardy and Piedmont, such as the decoration of the presbytery and apse of S. Maria di Campagna at Pallanza, executed together with Carlo Urbino (Turner, N.: From Michelangelo to Annibale Carracci. A century of Italian drawings from the Prado, Art Services International-Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008, p. 118).