Jacopo Palma inherited the artistic talent of his father Antonio (ca. 1510-1575), who ran his own painting studio in Venice. Even more famous was his great-uncle, Jacopo Palma il Vecchio (ca. 1480-1528). In order to distinguish himself from this namesake, Jacopo acquired the epithet il Giovane with his increasing success.
Through the patronage of Guidobaldo II. della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, Palma left Pesaro, site of his first training, for the ducal residence at Urbino in 1564.
Shortly thereafter, we have evidence of a period of study in Rome, where Palma was formatively influenced by the work of Michelangelo and the mannerists. Around 1568, Palma returned to Venice for good, where he soon received prestigious commissions for the Palace of the Doges and many of the city’s important churches. The study shown here is the prima idea for one such altarpiece in the Venetian church of San Geremia (Fig. 1). In particular, Palma transferred the composition of the figure of Saint Joachim on the left nearly unchanged to the final version of the composition.