CLOVIO, GIORGIO GIULIO, historical and portrait painter, was born in Slavonia in 1498. Having in the early part of his youth applied himself to literature, his genius prompted him to pursue the art of painting as a profession; and at the age of eighteen he went to Rome, where he spent three years to perfect himself in drawing, and devoted himself entirely to painting in miniature. His knowledge of colouring was derived from the instructions of Julio Romano, and his taste in composition and design was formed by the observations he made on the works of Michael Angelo Buonarroti. With this assistance he arrived at such a degree of excellence in portrait as well as in historical painting, that he was accounted equal to Titian in the former, and in the latter not inferior to Buonarroti himself. He died in 1578.