the 1480s and 1490s he built fortresses in Ostia, Iesi,
Osimo, and Senigallia. He also fortified the Santuario della
Sta. Casa at Loreto (1490–94) and built other churches
and religious buildings, many of them for the popes Six-
tus IV and Innocent VIII. He died in Urbino.
Pontormo, Jacopo da (Jacopo Carrucci) (1494–1557)
Italian painter
Born near Empoli, the son of the painter and draftsman
Bartolommeo Carrucci, Pontormo probably became a
pupil of Leonardo da Vinci in about 1511. He was then ap-
prenticed to ALBERTINELLIand PIERO DI COSIMObefore be-
coming the assistant of ANDREA DEL SARTO, by whom he
was profoundly influenced. Early works in the style of An-
drea del Sarto include the Visitation (1514–16; SS. Annun-
ziata, Florence), but a more individual approach is evident
in the complex painting Joseph in Egypt (1518–19; Na-
tional Gallery, London), which owes a clear debt to DÜRER
and includes a portrait of Pontormo’s pupil and adopted
son Angelo BRONZINO. In about 1520 Pontormo decorated
the Medici family villa at Poggia a Caiano with mytholog-
ical scenes, after which he executed further decorations
for the Certosa near Florence in a mannerist style. Pon-
tormo then embarked upon his masterpiece, a cycle of
paintings in the Capponi chapel of Sta. Felicità, Florence
(1525–28), loosely based upon MICHELANGELO’s Pietà.
These works included an entombment scene with a self-
portrait of the artist and the Deposition. Later works in-
clude the Visitation (1528–30; Carmignano, Pieve) and
fresco decorations for the choir of San Lorenzo, Florence
(1554–57), a major work, influenced by Michelangelo, of
which only the original drawings survive. A recluse in his
later years, Pontormo wrote a diary (1554–57) that vividly
illuminates his obsessive and neurotic character.
Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio de Sacchis) (c. 1484–
1539) Italian painter
Born in Pordenone in Friuli, Pordenone was a pupil of
Pellegrino da San Daniele, although early influences also
included Giorgione and Mantegna. In about 1515 he
moved to Rome where he was further influenced by the
works of Michelangelo, Correggio, and Raphael and de-
veloped his taste for highly dramatic illusionistic painting.
His masterpiece was the cycle of frescoes on the Passion in
Cremona cathedral (c. 1521), painted in a distinctly man-
nerist style that is also evident in his painted dome in Tre-
viso cathedral (1520–22) and his frescoes at Piacenza
(1531; Madonna di Campagna). He eventually settled in
Venice where, for a brief time, he rivaled TITIAN. Both Tit-
ian and RUBENSadopted elements of his style.
Porta, Giacomo della See GIACOMO DELLA PORTA
Porta, Giambattista della See GIAMBATTISTA DELLA
PORTA
Porta, Guglielmo della See GUGLIELMO DELLA PORTAPortinari altarpiece (c. 1475/77) A large-scale triptych
commissioned from Hugo van der GOESby Tommaso
Portinari, the Italian agent of the Medici in Bruges, for the
church of the hospital of Sta. Maria Nuova, Florence (now
in the Uffizi, Florence). The Adoration scene on the
central panel is flanked by portraits of the donor and his
family with their patron saints on the wings. An Annunci-
ation, painted in grisaille, is revealed when the wings are
closed. See Plate VI.portolans Sailors’ charts based on practical navigational
experience and giving details of features of interest to
ships’ pilots. Inland features are seldom marked. In use
from at least the late 13th to the late 15th century, the por-
tolans’ main function was to record bearings, distances,
coastal landmarks, and hazards for the guidance of
mariners. They were generally hand written on parch-
ment, and were based on the assumption that the Earth is
flat. Most portolans were of southern European origin and
many famous ones can be found in the 13th-century Com-
passo di navigare, a comprehensive survey of the Mediter-
ranean and the Black Sea.
See also: CATALAN ATLASPortuguese language The Romance language of more
than 85 million speakers in Portugal, Brazil, the Azores,
and a few formerly colonial areas of Africa and Asia. Gali-
cian or Galego, spoken in northwestern Spain, is a dialect
of Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese differs in generally
minor details of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar
from the language of the mother country. The region of
the Iberian peninsula known as Lusitania took its name
from the Celts who settled there about 1000 BCEand were
particularly concentrated in the Serra da Estrela. Some of
these tribes for a time successfully resisted Roman at-
tempts at colonization in the second and first centuries
BCE, while others, such as the Conii in Algarve, accepted
Roman rule. Roman conquest of the region was completed
by Julius and Augustus Caesar.
Portuguese derives from the Vulgar Latin spoken in
the province, but, like Spanish, reflects the influences of
later invasions (Germanic and Arabic) and the country’s
subsequent cultural (French and Italian borrowings) and
imperial (African and Amerindian words) history. Ger-
manic tribes invaded the whole of the Iberian peninsula in
the fifth century CE. The kingdom of the Suevi (Swabians)
in the north was taken over by the dominant Visigoths to-
wards the end of the sixth century. In 711 the Moors oc-
cupied all areas except Asturias (east of Galicia, the
present province of Oviedo) and the Basque homeland.
Portugal’s national identity, which assured the separate de-
velopment of the language, evolved during the slow
process of the reconquest. The Moors were driven from33888 8 PPoonnttoorrmmoo,, JJaaccooppoo ddaa