Niccolo da Modena or Nicholas Bellin of Modena (died 1569) was an Italian artist and technician at the English court.Walter G. Richardson, The Report of the Royal Commission of 1552 (West Virginia University Library, 1974), p. 136.
Career
He was born in Modena near the end of the 15th century. He is first recorded at the French court in 1516 as a valet of the wardrobe. Other painters and artists including Jean Clouet had similar court offices. He worked for several years at Fontainebleau, and came to London in 1532 where he was recorded working at Whitehall. He returned to France and made masquerade costumes for the wedding of the Comte de Saint-Pol. He returned to England in August 1537.Edward Town, 'A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters, 1547–1625', Walpole Society, 76 (London, 2014), p. 143.
He came to England from the works of Francis II of France at Fontainebleau, and worked at Nonsuch Palace and Whitehall Palace for Henry VIII. He had left France under a cloud, accused of embezzling funds. The diplomat John Wallop, who had visited the Palace of Fontainebleau and written about the magnificence of its gallery, was an advocate for Bellin's employment in England.Kent Rawlinson, "Architectural Culture and Royal Image at the Henrician Court", Thomas Betteridge and Suzannah Lipscomb, Henry VIII and the Court: Arts, Politics and Performance (Ashgate, 2013), p. 103.
Bellin was a painter, carver, designer and technologist. He continued to work for Edward VI.Simon Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (Yale, 1993), pp. 107-108.John Gough Nichols, 'Contemporaries and Successors of Holbein', Archaeologia, 39 (London, 1863), p. 37. As well as decorative painting for the Tudor palaces, "Nicholas Modena" or "Moden", as he was known in England, made masque costumes, papier-mâché and boiled leather ornament, and leather horse-armour known as barding.
Nonsuch was decorated with carved and slates. In 1542 Niccolo provided a special varnish for the slates, made from "mastyke vernyshe and oyle with other necessaryes for the pollishing settyng and vernyshing".John Dent, The Quest for Nonsuch (London, 1962), p. 283: Surrey History Centre: LM/837, Nicholas Modena at Nonsuch, 1542–4.
His revels costumes included leather garments for wild men who acted as torch-bearers, equipped with helmets, staves, and clubs.Eleanor Lowe, Martin Wiggins, Janette Dillon, "Accounts and inventories of the Revels Office", Malone Society Collections, XVII (2016), p. 58. He decorated a pageant stage called the "mount" with terracotta and plaster of paris ornaments and other moulding compounds. The mount was used in an interlude of Orpheus at the coronation of Edward VI.Alfred John Kempe, Loseley Manuscripts (London, 1836), pp. 73-80: Albert Feuillerat, Documents relating to the revels of Edward VI and Mary (Louvain, 1914), p. 8
He was paid for "six heads of hair for women masquers and for the tryming Coloring and lyning of xvj vizars or maskes for moores", for actors and dancers portraying imagined Africans.Ian Smith, 'White Skin, Black Masks', Jeffrey Masten & Wendy Wall, Renaissance Drama 32 (Evanson, 2003), p. 44: Albert Feuillerat, Documents relating to the revels of Edward VI and Mary (Louvain, 1914), p. 31. An inventory of the revels costume mentions a set of eight costumes for women disguised as "Mores", made of silver, cloth of gold, and "tilsent" with "head pieces or coiffes to the same of like stuff having perukes of here (hair) everie of them".Meg Twycross and Sarah Carpenter, Masks and Masking in Medieval and Early Tudor England (Ashgate, 2002), p. 319: David Starkey, Inventory of Henry VIII (London, 1998), p. 168 no. 8663. This use of fabric to represent black skin in early modern theatre has been described a "chromatic materiality".Ian Smith, "White Skin, Black Masks: Racial Cross-Dressing on the Early Modern Stage", Jeffrey Masten and William N. West (eds.), Renaissance Drama, 32 (2003), pp. 39, 44.
He made the effigy used at the funeral of Henry VIII in 1547.Simon Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (Yale, 1993), p. 108. He made leather horse armour used against the Scots at the battle of Pinkie during the war known as the Rough Wooing.Stuart W. Pyhrr, Donald J. LaRocca, Dirk H. Breiding, The Armored Horse in Europe, 1480–1620 (New York, 2005), pp.57-8: Nicolas Bellin's account, National Archives TNA E101/504/8. Niccolo, listed as a carver, Anthony Toto, and Nicholas Lizard attended the funeral of Edward VI.Archaeologia, vol. 12, p. 391.
Niccolo worked for many years in the Tomb House at Westminster Abbey. In 1559 he gave Elizabeth I a portrait of Henry VIII's fool Patch.Edward Town, 'A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters, 1547–1625', Walpole Society, 76 (London, 2014), p. 143.
He died in London in 1569.
Other Italian craftsmen employed by the Tudor court include Archangelo Arcano and Giovanni da Maiano.
References
External links NON59 Slate and Stucco, Nicholas Bellin of Modena, Museum of London Photographs of accounts from Niccolo da Modena for making moulded leather horse armour, TNA E101/504, via AALT