Cesare Vecellio

Who was Cesare Vecellio?

Cesare Vecellio was an Italian engraver and painter of the Renaissance, active in Venice.

He was the cousin of the painter Titian. Like Titian, he was born at Cadore in the Veneto. He accompanied Titian to Augsburg in 1548, and seems to have worked as his assistant. Many of Cesare's pictures were ascribed, perhaps knowingly, to Titian. In the Milan Pinacoteca there is a small Trinity by Cesare. He died at Venice. The crude woodcuts for book assembling contemporary fashion from across the world, De gli Habiti Antichi e Modérni di Diversi Parti di Mondo published in Venice in 1590 by Cesare as if they were his works, may in fact belong to Christopher Krieger from Nuremberg. They depict the garb, sometimes fanciful and imagined, of individuals, men and women, from Tsars to Tribeswomen from the Arabian Desert to Muscovite nobles to Arabian nobles to Inca nobles.

Cesare also published a book of prints depicting the jewels of royal crowns, titled Corona delle nobili e virtuose donne.

Cesare's brother, Fabrizio di Cadore or Ettore, was little known beyond his native place, for the Council-hall of which he is said to have painted a fine picture. He died in 1580.