orig. Giulio di Pietro di Filippo de' Gianuzzi
born 1492/99, Rome, Papal States
died Nov. 1, 1546, Mantua, Duchy of Mantua
Italian painter and architect.
Apprenticed to Raphael in Rome, on his master's death he became Raphael's principal heir and artistic executor, completing several of Raphael's important Vatican frescoes. From 1524 he lived in Mantua, where he came to dominate artistic activity at the Gonzaga court and developed a personal, anti-Classical style. His most important commission, the Palazzo del Te (begun 1526), was one of the first Mannerist buildings to deliberately flout the tenets of Classical architecture. He achieved great fame in his lifetime, and his work presaged the illusionistic ceiling painting of the Baroque period .