Like his youngest brother Giuseppe Danedi, Giovanni Stefano was steeped in the tradition of the early Seicento Milanese painters Cerano, Camillo and Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Daniele Crespi, and Francesco Cairo, but especially Morazzone, in whose workshop they trained. Morazzone, who had worked at the Sacro Monte at Varallo, was a master of illusionism, naturalism, and dramatic pathos, which in the later years of his career veered towards eccentric if extraordinarily beautifully lit renditions of intensely macabre subjects. Montalto followed closely in his master’s footsteps, especially early on his career.