"In Lombardy he has the reputation of being the greatest of all painters in making landscapes, in murals or in oil or gouache.'"
- assessment of Dosso Dossi by Simon Fornari, published in Fornari's La spositione di M. SIMON FORNARI da Reggio sopra l'Orlando Furioso di M. Ludovico Ariosto (Florence, 1550)

Dosso Dossi was a Renaissance court painter, serving the Dukes of Este at Ferrara in Northern Italy. He painted landscapes (oil or fresco) and mythological paintings. He was an innovator in the technique of oil painting, designing on the canvas itself.

According to his biographer Vasari, Dosso was a pupil of Lorenzo Costa di Ottavio, court painter at Mantua from 1507. Dosso first appears in Mantuan records in 1512. The influence of Giorgione and Titian in his early work suggests Dosso visited Venice before appearing in Ferrara records in 1514. He revisited Venice in 1516 and 1518, and visited Florence in 1517. Dosso's art (especially his scenes of people at leisure in natural settings) reflects culture at the Ferrara court. In his mature art of the 1520s, Dosso interpreted Raphael, Dürer, and the heroic nudes of Giulio Romano. His 1530s works echo the delicacy of Rosso Fiorentino.

Giovanni Francesco di Luteri/Lutero (called Dosso Dossi after a family property) was court painter to Dukes Alfonso I and Ercole II d'Este at Ferrara. Most of Dosso's work there was destroyed or removed. His delightful landscapes reinterpreted the landscape art of antiquity, as described in Pliny's Natural History, Book XXXV: 115-117. The oil painting Aeneas at the Entrance to the Elysian Fields formed part of his frieze for Duke Alfonso's Camerino d'Alabastro. He painted altarpieces for the dukes and other patrons. The Sala delle Cariatidi at the Villa Imperiale, Pesaro testifies to Dosso's ability in fresco.