Lotto first practiced as a painter in the town of Treviso, but during his long and restless career he also spent periods in Bergamo and the Marches, as well as in Venice itself. He spent his final, lonely years at Loreto, where he died as a lay brother in a religious community. Humfrey examines the way in which Lotto responded to the work of a wide range of artists, from Giovanni Bellini and Albrecht Durer to Raphael and Titian, but also emphasizes the painter's marked stylistic individuality, even idiosyncrasy. Particularly attractive to twentieth-century viewers are Lotto's portraits, the psychological penetration of which reveal a personality, exceptionally finely attuned to the thoughts and emotions of his fellow human beings. The artist emerges as one of the most engaging and distinctive personalities of Italian Renaissance art.
