1566 in art

Events

• August 10 - Beeldenstorm: At the end of a pilgrimage from Hondschoote to Steenvoorde, the chapel of the Sint-Laurensklooster is defaced by a crowd. It is the start of a period of several weeks of violent iconoclasm in which paintings and church decorations and fittings are destroyed throughout the Low Countries.
• Pieter Bruegel the Elder begins painting The Massacre of the Innocents.
• Giuseppe Arcimboldo returns to the Italian city-states.
• An epitaph to Elisabeth of Brandenburg, Duchess of Brunswick-Calenberg-Göttingen, designed by Sigmund Linger, is erected in the St. Giles Chapel of the St. John's Church in Schleusingen.

Paintings

• Giuseppe Arcimboldo
• *The Jurist
• *The Librarian
• *Water or Fish (The Four Elements; Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna
• Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Census at Bethlehem
• Antoine Caron - The Massacres of the Triumvirate
• Hans Eworth - Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York
• Paolo Veronese - altarpiece of Jesus' baptism, at the cathedral of Lignano Sabbiadoro

Births

• January 15 - Philipp Uffenbach, German painter and etcher
• date unknown
• *Giovanni Baglione, Italian early baroque painter and historian of art
• *Abraham Bloemaert, Dutch painter and printmaker
• *Domenico Carpinoni, Italian painter of primarily religious works
• *Johann Matthias Kager, German painter
• *Santo Peranda, a historical painter of Venice
• *Joachim Wtewael, Dutch painter and engraver

Deaths

• April 4 - Daniele da Volterra, Italian mannerist painter and sculptor
• April 16 - Juan Correa de Vivar, Spanish Renaissance painter
• August - Lambert Lombard, Flemish Renaissance painter, architect and theorist for the Prince-Bishopric of Liège
• August 4 - Girolamo della Robbia, Italian ceramicist
• date unknown
• *Ahmed Karahisari, Ottoman calligrapher
• probable
• *Niccolò Boldrini, Italian engraver
• *Girolamo Romanino, Italian painter
• *Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Flemish Northern Renaissance painter