Amico Aspertini (c. 1474 – 1552),

was an Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor whose complex, eccentric, and eclectic style anticipates Mannerism. He is considered one of the leading exponents of the Bolognese School of painting. He was born in Bologna to a family of painters (including Giovanni Antonio Aspertini, his father, and Guido Aspertini, his brother), and studied under masters such as Lorenzo Costa and Francesco Francia. His Tuscan near-contemporary Giorgio Vasari described Aspertini (in The Lives) as having an eccentric, half-insane personality. According to Vasari, he was ambidextrous and worked so rapidly with both hands that he was able to divide chiaroscuro between them, painting chiaro with one hand and scuro with the other. Vasari also quotes Aspertini as complaining that all his Bolognese colleagues were copying Raphael.