Leaves of Color
rancesco Marmitta was born in Parma in the 1460s. He was the son of a wool and wax merchant and became an acclaimed painter, goldsmith, engraver of gems, and illuminator. Today, his work is in several high-profile collections. , which Marmitta (circa 1500, tempera and gold on parchment), a small painting created for private devotion and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, belonged to the Medici pope Clement VII and was gifted to Christine of Lorrain, grand duchess of Tuscany, by Pope Gregory XIV in 1591. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore acquired the (circa 1505), illuminated by Marmitta, in 1931.
