Italian painter. It is generally agreed that he received his early training with Giulio Campi in Cremona, where he developed his style, derived from Lombard and Emilian Mannerism. In 1549 Gambara returned to Brescia, where he became an assistant to Girolamo Romanino and married the latter's daughter in 1556. During the 1550s he collaborated with Romanino on the fresco cycles in the Averoldi and Bargnani palaces in Brescia, where he made some accommodation in his style to Romanino's, though demonstrating his innate eclecticism. His first important independent commissions were the façade frescoes (c. 1557) on the Case del Gambero (Brescia). Here, Gambara fused the decorative elegance of Parmigianino and Camillo Boccaccino with the Michelangelesque qualities of Giulio Romano and Pordenone. He was a prolific fresco painter and draughtsman, and after Romanino's death in 1560 he became the leading artist in Brescia. In 1561 he frescoed four scenes from the Apocalypse in the Broletto Palace in Brescia (destroyed), which reflected strongly the influence of Giulio Romano. This is true also of his Nativity (c. 1561-68; Brescia, Santi Faustino e Giovità), where an academic dryness begins to appear. From 1567 to 1573 Gambara was engaged in frescoing the nave arcade and internal façade of Parma Cathedral together with the Cremonese painter Bernardino Gatti. These frescoes, as well as the contemporary frescoes in Cremona Cathedral, are in a turgid Mannerist style, filled with large figures and complicated foreshortening. He died while executing the vault frescoes in San Lorenzo, Brescia. //