Melone contributed frescoes to the Cathedral of Cremona in 1516. The Lamentation in the
Pinacoteca di Brera[4] comes in all probability from the church of Saint Lorenzo in
Brescia and is dated 1512. The stylistic convergence with Romanino is particularly obvious, such that the contemporary Venetian
Marcantonio Michiel describes the Cremonese painter as a "disciple of Armanin".
Moreover, in his masterpiece frescoes, Melone aims to be an interpreter of the anticlassicism and "expressionist" language emerging in the work of Romanino. The seven scenes realized by Altobello evince a new forcefulness – the Massacre of the Innocents is emblematic of this quality, which is manifest in the gestures and in the grotesque transformation of the faces.
Selected works
Madonna and Child with Saint John (c. 1510) –
Accademia Carrara, Bergamo
Adoration of the Christ Child (c. 1510) – Kunsthaus, Zürich (warehouse)
Freedberg, Sydney J. (1993). Pelican History of Art (ed.). Painting in Italy, 1500–1600. Penguin Books Ltd. pp. 373–375.
Paoletti, John T. (2005). "16. Lombardy: Instability and Religious Fervor". Art in Renaissance Italy (3rd ed.). Gary M. Radke. London: Laurence King. p. 384.
ISBN1-85669-439-9.