Events from the year 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.^[1]
• Pieter Bruegel the Elder begins painting The Massacre of the Innocents (1566-1567).
• 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 (approximate date)
  • 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 (died 1636)
• date unknown
  • Giovanni Baglione, Italian early baroque painter and historian of art (died 1643)
  • Abraham Bloemaert, Dutch painter and printmaker (died 1651)
  • Domenico Carpinoni, Italian painter of primarily religious works (died 1658)
  • Johann Matthias Kager, German painter (died 1634)
  • Santo Peranda, a historical painter of Venice (died 1638)
  • Joachim Wtewael, Dutch painter and engraver (died 1638)

Deaths

• April 4 - Daniele da Volterra, Italian mannerist painter and sculptor (born c.1509)
• April 16 - Juan Correa de Vivar, Spanish Renaissance (Renacimiento) painter (born c.1510)
• August - Lambert Lombard, Flemish Renaissance painter, architect and theorist for the Prince-Bishopric of Liège (born 1505)
• August 4 - Girolamo della Robbia, Italian ceramicist (born 1488)
• date unknown
  • Ahmed Karahisari, Ottoman calligrapher (born 1468)
• probable
  • Niccolò Boldrini, Italian engraver (born c.1500)
  • Girolamo Romanino, Italian painter (born c.1485)
  • Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Flemish Northern Renaissance painter (born c.1500)