Giovanni Cariani
Giovanni Cariani (c. 1490–1547), also known as Giovanni Busi or Il Cariani, was an Italian painter of the high-Renaissance, active in Venice and the Venetian mainland, including Bergamo, thought to be his native city.
Also recorded as Cariani · Giovanni Busi · Giovanni de'Busi · Giovanni De' Busi Cariani
Giovanni Cariani

Giovanni Cariani · FQHtKvV4AwcZ5w at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level · Public domain
- Died
- 1547 · Venice.
- Nationality
- Republic of Venice
- Occupation
- painter
- Fields
- Italian painting
- Known for
- Portrait of Two Young Men · Madonna and Child with St. Sebastian · Virgin Enthroned with Angels and Saints
- Languages
- Italian
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Giovanni Cariani (c. 1490–1547), also known as Giovanni Busi or Il Cariani, was an Italian painter of the high-Renaissance, active in Venice and the Venetian mainland, including Bergamo, thought to be his native city.
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Note VALÉORINE
Giovanni Cariani (1485–1547) was a painter and a national of the Republic of Venice. Born in San Giovanni Bianco, the painter died in Venice.
Giovanni Cariani worked in Bergamo and Venice. The painter was active in Italian painting.
Works include Portrait of Two Young Men and Virgin Enthroned with Angels and Saints. Languages used include Italian. Works by Giovanni Cariani are held at Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Hermitage Museum and National Galleries Scotland, among others.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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original value insufficient · checked 25 September 2026
- Identity
- resolved
- Independent source families
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Authority files
wikidata · Q976391 · wikipedia · Giovanni Cariani
In this article
Overview
Overview
The recorded working language is Italian. The field of work recorded is Italian painting. Places of work recorded in the authority are Venice and Bergamo. Works named in the authority record are Portrait of Two Young Men, Madonna and Child with St. Work by Giovanni Cariani is recorded in the collections of J. Paul Getty Museum, National Galleries Scotland, Pinacoteca di Brera, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Hermitage Museum.
His father, also Giovanni Busi, was born in Fuipiano Al Brembo which is a hamlet of San Giovanni Bianco (Bergamo), and was appointed a local magistrate for the Venetian authorities. His son, also born in Fuipiano Al Brembo, is known to have lived in Venice starting in 1509, and may have trained with either Giovanni Bellini or Giorgione, and almost certainly was influenced by them. Though he worked often in Bergamo, he died in Venice in 1547. He was strongly influenced by Palma il Vecchio, but had a provincial love of scenery as seen in his Sacra conversazione with a youthful donor. While working in Bergamo (1517–1523), he likely overlapped with Lorenzo Lotto, who worked there from 1513 to 1525.
Cariani and the Courtesans
Cariani and the Courtesans
The 1987 BBC Two television play Cariani and the Courtesans, written and directed by Leslie Megahey, presented a fictionalised account of the painter's time in Venice, with Cariani (Paul McGann) interacting with other historical characters, such as Tullia d'Aragona (Diana Quick), Marcantonio Raimondi (Simon Callow), and Francesco Albani (Michael Gough), with a brief "cameo" by Albrecht Dürer (Frederik de Groot), and narrated by Charles Gray. The narrative is woven around the painting of a number of his works, principally Four Courtesans and Three Gentlemen.[1] Megahey had previously used the same narrative device on the 1979 production Schalcken the Painter.
Partial anthology of works
Partial anthology of works
The Lute Player (c. 1514–1516) - Musee des Beaux Arts de Strasbourg Conversation between young woman and old man (1516) - Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. [2]. Resurrection of Christ with two Donors (1520) - Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan [3] Archived 2007-06-07 at the Wayback Machine. Pala di San Gottardo (1523) - Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Madonna Cucitrice (1525–1528) - Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome. Finding the True Cross (1530) - Accademia Carrara, Bergamo. Lovers in a Landscape (1530) - Palazzo Venezia Lady Portrait (1530) - White Palace, Belgrade A Concert (1518–1520) - National Gallery of Art, Washington DC [4] Sacra Conversazione with a Youthful Donor (1640) - National Gallery, London [5] Saint Agata (1516) - National Gallery, Ottawa, Canada.[6] Portrait (1517) - National Gallery, London [7].

Jesus and the woman taken in adultery
Giovanni Cariani · Accademia Carrara

Giovanni Cariani, Busi Giovanni detto Cariani – Ritratto di Giovanni Benedetto Caravaggi – Accademia Carrara, Bergamo
Giovanni Cariani · Humanitas Gavazzeni
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
San Giovanni Bianco.
Birth place
Venice.
Death place
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Giovanni Cariani”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q976391: Giovanni Cariani
Unverified · Wikidata
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedauthority record
Unverified
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Paintings
18,623 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Giovanni Camillo SagrestaniArtist
- Giovanni CanavesioArtist
- Giovanni CantiArtist
- Giovanni CarboncinoArtist
- Giovanni Carlo BevilacquaArtist
- Giovanni CarnovaliArtist
- Giovanni CianfaniniArtist
- Giovanni CingolaniArtist
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