Castelfranco Veneto

Inside the walls the town is always the same as in the paintings by Giorgione, while the outer districts were transformed fastly in the Venetian style. Giorgione (c. 1477-1510), born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, whose life was described in Giorgio Vasari's Vite, was one of the most important painters in the Renaissance. Only a very few paintings are known for certain to be his work, and at his sudden death from plague he probably left some works unfinished.

While still in Castelfranco he painted the Castelfranco Madonna, which marks a departure in Venetian art, with its delicate color modulations, and painted with the tiny disconnected spots of color that Giorgione brought into oil painting, derived from manuscript illumination techniques. These gave Giorgione's works their unique light glow.