Francesco Squarcione (1394 - 1468), artist, teacher and entrepreneur, has been credited with huge influence on North Italian painting from 1440 to 1460.
Active in Padua, his pupils included Mantegna, Giorgio Schiavone, and Zoppo. His studio was known for drawings, casts after sculpture and reliefs; these influenced Mantegna's generation. The scarcity of works by Squarcione makes his importance hard to assess. His style includes festoons of fruit, marbled architectural elements and putti. Both Zoppo and Mantegna fell out with him because he sold their works as his own.