Zuccaro, Federico

Zuccaro, Federico

 or Federico Zuccari

(born c. 1540, Sant'Angelo in Vado, Duchy of Urbino—died July 20, 1609, Ancona) Italian painter and art theorist. In 1565 he worked in Florence with Giorgio Vasari. He codified the theory of Mannerism in The Idea of Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1607) and in a series of frescoes in his own house in Rome. In England in 1575 he drew or painted portraits of Elizabeth I and the earl of Leicester. He also painted the dome of the cathedral of Florence (1574), a large work in the Doges' Palace in Venice (1582), and much work for El Escorial in Spain (1585–88). At one time the central figure of the Roman Mannerist school, he lived to see Mannerism become extinct.