Primaticcio was the head of the First School of Fontainebleau, and a universal impresario - painter, sculptor, architect, interior decorator. He learned these arts under
Giulio Romano in the Palazzo del Tè at Mantua, from 1525/6 until 1532, when he was summoned to France by Franois I and began to work at Fontainebleau, where he met
Rosso. From 1540 until 1542 he was in Rome buying for Franois, and on his return he found that Rosso was dead and
Cellini had arrived (Cellini later threatened to kill him like a dog ). With Niccolò dell Abbate he worked on the (lost) decorations of the Galrie d Ulysse at Fontainebleau, and in 1546 he was again in Rome to get casts made, including
Michelangelo s Pietà in St Peter s, while in 1563 he revisited Bologna, his native town, and met
Vasari there.
There are works by him in Barnard Castle (Bowes Museum), Bologna, Chantilly, Florence (Uffizi), Glasgow, Montpellier, Paris (Louvre and Cluny Museum), Pittsburgh, and Toledo Ohio, but his main contribution is the combination of painted and high relief
stucco decoration evolved at Fontainebleau and still partially preserved there.
