Bartolomeo Passarotti

(bapt Bologna, 28 June 1529; d Bologna, 3 June 1592). Italian painter, draughtsman, engraver and collector. His first biographer, Raffaele Borghini, records that he travelled to Rome with Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, returned briefly to Bologna, then made a second visit to Rome and stayed with Taddeo Zuccaro. Documentary evidence attests to his presence in Rome in June 1551. By 1560 Passarotti was established in Bologna, where he opened a workshop and joined the Compagnia delle Quattro Arti. His activity in these years as a prestigious portraitist of popes (e.g. portrait of Pope Gregory XIII Boncompagni; c. 1572; Gotha, Mus. Nat.) and Roman cardinals, mentioned by Borghini, and his interest in anticaglie (miscellaneous antiquities), for example those sent to him from Rome on 9 September 1572, indicate his continued links with the capital.

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