Francesco Melzi | |
---|---|
![]() Portrait by Giovanni Boltraffio, c. 1496~1498 | |
Born | 1491 |
Died | 1570 Italy | (aged 78–79)
Nationality | Italian |
Movement | Renaissance |
Spouse |
Angiola di Landriani
(m. 1519) |
Patron(s) | Charles II d'Amboise Francis I of France |
Francesco Melzi, or Francesco de Melzi (1491–1567), was an Italian painter born into a family of the Milanese nobility in Lombardy. He became a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci and remained as his closest professional assistant throughout his career. After da Vinci's death he became the literary executor of all da Vinci's papers, editing them into a manuscript on painting he published as Trattato della Pittura [Treatise on Painting] or a compilation entitled the Codex Urbinas.