Pietro da Cortona
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Pietro da Cortona
(born Nov. 1, 1596, Cortona, Tuscanydied May 16, 1669, Rome, Papal States) Italian painter, architect, and decorator. The son of a stonemason, he was apprenticed to a painter in Florence. His first major work, a series of frescoes in the small church of Santa Bibiana in Rome (162426), was commissioned by Pope Urban VIII, and the patronage of the pope's family, the Barberinis, advanced Pietro's career. The rich exuberance of those Baroque frescoes was a prelude to his best-known work, the large ceiling fresco Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power (163239) in the Barberini Palace. Here he demonstrated his mastery of illusion, for the centre of the vault appears open to the sky and the figures seem to hover in space. He provided a series of frescoes for the Pitti Palace in Florence. Also a master architect, his greatest architectural accomplishment is the church of Santi Martina e Luca in Rome (1634), the first Baroque church built as a unitary whole.
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Pietro da Cortona
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Pietro da Cortona
(b Cortona, ?1 Nov 1596; bapt 27 Nov 1597; d Rome, 16 May 1669). Italian painter, draughtsman and architect. He was, together with Gianlorenzo Bernini and Franceso Borromini, one of the three leading artists of the Roman Baroque. As a painter he developed the early Baroque style, initiated by Annibale Carracci, to a magnificent and imposing High Baroque. His fresco decorations set a standard for European Baroque painting until they were eclipsed by Giambattista Tiepolo's works and those of other Venetian masters of the 18th century. As an architect Cortona was far less influential. His imaginative designs for fa?ades and stucco decorations were, however, conclusive and independent solutions to problems central to Roman Baroque architecture.
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Pietro da Cortona
The Italian painter and architect Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) was one of the main representatives of the first full flowering of the high baroque style in Italy.
Pietro Berrettini, known as Pietro da Cortona from his birthplace of Cortona, a little town in Tuscany, was born on Nov. 1, 1596. In Rome, where he went in his teens, the paintings of Annibale Carracci and ancient Roman sculpture especially influenced him. With the encouragement of the learned archeologist Cassiano dal Pozzo he studied, as his contemporary G. B. Passeri tells us, "the statues and bas-reliefs of the ancient Romans, especially various columns, urns, and vases on which were represented sacrifices, bacchic revels, and other pagan ceremonies."
From such ancient sculpture Cortona usually selected those with the most dynamic compositions for his paintings. In his Rape of the Sabines (ca. 1629) the figures are arranged on planes parallel to the surface, almost as in a bas-relief, and the Roman architecture and Roman military dress are carefully rendered. But what is most evident is the violence of the individual gestures, the agitation and tumult that fill the whole composition. The highly active figures in Cortona's picture are painted in bright colors that are often laid on rapidly, so that the individual brushstrokes remain visible, much in the manner of the great Venetian artists of the 16th century such as Titian and Veronese.
Cortona's masterpiece of painting is the Glorification of Pope Urban VIII (1639), which covers the entire ceiling of the Great Hall of the Barberini Palace in Rome. It is painted to give the illusion that we are looking up into a wide stretch of open sky, partially interrupted by sections of an architectural framework. The sky is filled to overflowing with swarms of human figures who act out endless allegories as they drift back and forth over our heads and under the painted architecture like the last act in some theatrical spectacular in the sky.
Cortona's last major work, the ceiling paintings for the long gallery in the Pamphili Palace in Rome (1654), depicts the story of Aeneas. The gentler rhythms, the paler colors, and the uncrowded compositions with large stretches of open sky all seem to anticipate the 18th century.
Far less of Cortona's career was devoted to architecture, but here too he demonstrated the highest originality. His facade for the little church of S. Maria della Pace in Rome (1657) spreads across the front of a cloister on one side and an adjacent church on the other. A street runs through what looks like the right aisle. The whole surface of the building seems in motion. Sections of it rise and fall, bulge out or swing back, creating an orchestration as complex as his ceiling paintings and more sophisticated. Cortona died in Rome on May 16, 1669.
Further Reading
The standard biography of Cortona is in Italian: Giuliano Briganti, Pietro da Cortona (1962). There are good chapters on Cortona in English in Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750 (1958; 2d ed. 1965), and Ellis K. Waterhouse, Italian Baroque Painting (1962). The section on Cortona in Robert Enggass and Jonathan Brown, Italy and Spain, 1600-1750 (1970), gives a detailed explanation of the meaning of Cortona's complicated ceiling painting in the Barberini Palace.
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Pietro Berrettini da Cortona
(1596–1669)
With Bernini and Borromini, one of the great masters of Roman Baroque. Trained as a painter, Cortona settled in Rome around 1611, where he was patronized by the Sacchettis, for whom he designed the Palazzetto del Pigneto (1626–36). Although the building no longer exists, it made his reputation at the time, for it was approached through a series of ramps and terraces leading up to the entrance exedra, a design influenced, no doubt, by the Roman temple of Fortuna at Palestrina (Praeneste), and containing other Antique allusions, including semicircular apses screened by columns and derived from Roman thermae. The façade was one of the first curved fronts in Rome. He came to the notice of Cardinal Francesco Barberini(1597–1679), for whom he created the sensational Baroque ceiling-fresco (completed 1639) in the saloon of the Palazzo Barberini. His first church was Sts Luca e Martina (1634–69) in the Forum: the central part of the front has a convex plan, and columns are sunk into the wall in the manner of Michelangelo's Laurentian library-vestibule in Florence. Inside the church (a Greek cross on plan) the walls are articulated by means of Ionic columns and pilasters (the capitals are of the angular type), giving a unity to the entire composition enhanced by the lack of colour (the interior is painted white).
Under Pope Alexander VII (1655–67) da Cortona built two of the finest Baroque church façades in Rome. The front of Santa Maria della Pace (1656–9) has a half-elliptical porch of paired Tuscan columns and an upper storey with a recessed convex central section: the plastic qualities recall Michelangelo at his Mannerist best. Da Cortona carried the main elements of the façade over the adjacent buildings, creating a unified piazza resembling a theatre with boxes, with the church-front appearing as the backdrop. With the façade of Santa Maria in Via Lata (1658–62) in the Corso, da Cortona achieved a deceptive simplicity and grandeur with an in antis (see anta) porch and an upper storey featuring an arch continuing the profile of the entablature. The design was reminiscent of elements from Diocletian's Palace at Spalato and the temples at Baalbek.
Bibliography
- Briganti (1962)
- Norberg-Schulz (1986)
- Placzek (ed.) (1982)
- Jane Turner (1996)
- Varriano (1986)
- Wittkower (1982)
The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)
Columbia Encyclopedia:
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Pietro Berrettini da Cortona
Cortona, Pietro Berrettini da (pyā'trō bār-rĕt-tē'nē dä kōrtô'nä), 1596-1669, Italian baroque painter and architect, b. Cortona. The Barberini family commissioned him to paint frescoes for the vast ceiling of their palace in Rome, which resulted in the exuberant Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power (1633-39). The work, filled with swirling clouds and figures, was one of the most influential of baroque decorative schemes. It is a paramount example of baroque illusionism. In Florence he executed frescoes of the Four Ages and the rich ceiling decoration in the Pitti Palace, the Allegories of the Virtues and Planets. In these seven rooms the ceilings are unified with the structure of the rooms by stucco ornamentation. Pietro's pupil Ciro Ferri (1634-89) completed the work in the Pitti Palace. Almost equally ornate were Pietro's early architectural designs, such as that for the church of SS. Martina e Luca (1635-50) in Rome, which Pietro finished at his own expense. Later he turned to a greater simplification and massiveness in the facades of Santa Maria della Pace (1656-57) and Santa Maria in Via Lata (1658-62). His architectural works are among the most significant of the baroque period.
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Pietro da Cortona
| Pietro da Cortona | |
|---|---|
 Self-Portrait |
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| Birth name | Pietro Berrettini |
| Born | November 1, 1596 Cortona |
| Died | May 16, 1669 (aged 72) Rome, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Field | Painting and Architecture |
| Movement | Baroque |
Pietro da Cortona, also called Pietro Berrettini, born Pietro Berrettini da Cortona,[1] (1 November 1596/7[2] – 16 May 1669) was the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and, along with his contemporaries and rivals Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, was one of the key figures in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture. He was also an important designer of interior decorations.
Cortona worked mainly in Rome and Florence. He is best known for his frescoed ceilings such as the vault of the salone or main salon of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and carried out extensive painting and decorative schemes for the Medici family in Florence and for the Oratorian fathers at the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome. He also painted numerous canvases. Only a limited number of his architectural projects were built but nonetheless they are as distinctive and as inventive as those of his rivals.
Despite the high regard he was held in during his lifetime, his present fame does not match the esteem bestowed on Caravaggio, Bernini, and Borromini.
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Contents
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Biography
Early career
Berrettini was born into a family of artisans and masons,[3] in Cortona, then a town in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He trained in painting in Florence under Andrea Commodi, but soon he departed for Rome at around 1612/3, where he joined the studio of Baccio Ciarpi. He was involved in fresco decorations at the Palazzo Mattei in 1622-3 under the direction of Agostino Ciampelli and Cardinal Orsini had commissioned from him an Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1626) for San Salvatore in Lauro.
In Rome, he had encouragement from many prominent patrons. According to Cortona's biographers[4] his gifted copy of Raphael's Galatea fresco[5] brought him to the attention of Marcello Sacchetti, papal treasurer during the Barberini papacy. Such contacts helped him gain an early major commission in Rome (1624–1626), a fresco decoration in the church of Santa Bibiana that was being renovated under the direction of Bernini. In 1626, the Sacchetti family engaged Cortona to paint three large canvases of The Sacrifice of Polyxena, The Triumph of Bacchus, and The Rape of the Sabines (the latter, c. 1629),[6] and to paint a series of frescoes in the Villa Sacchetti at Castelfusano, near Ostia, using a team that included the young Andrea Sacchi. In the Sacchetti orbit, he met Pope Urban VIII and Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the papal nephew, and their patronage of Cortona provided him with ample scope to demonstrate his abilities as a painter of frescoes and canvases.
Grand Salon of Palazzo Barberini
Fresco cycles were numerous in Cortona's Rome; most represented framed episodes imitating canvases such as found in the Sistine Chapel ceiling or in Carraccis' The Loves of the Gods in the Farnese gallery (completed 1601). In 1633, Pope Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini) commissioned from Cortona a large fresco painting for the ceiling of the Barberini family palace; the Palazzo Barberini.[7] Completed six years later, the huge Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power marks a watershed in Baroque painting. A putative sketch of the plan, of doubtful authenticity, is exhibited in the hall. The fresco is an illusion with the central field apparently open to the sky and scores of figures seen 'al di sotto in su' apparently coming into the room itself or floating above it. It contains endless number of heraldic symbols and subthemes.
Cortona's panegyric trompe l'oeil extavaganzas have lost favor in minimalist times, yet they are precursors of sunny and cherubim infested rococo excesses. They contrast starkly with darker renegade naturalism prominent in Caravaggisti, and remind us that the Baroque style was not monolithic. Cortona, like Bernini in sculpture, appears reactionary, patronizing; yet if excellence in art is measured by the ability to match style to intent within the limitations of the medium, then Cortona was triumphant. He was among the first of the fresco painters that dispensed with the architectural masonry of the roof, erasing it away with painted integral architecture and a broad, non-framed vista. While rising heavenward, works like the Barberini Allegory are meant to stagger and humble the visitor, who seems to stand over, and not below, a looming abyss of mythic power that threatens to overwhelm the viewer.
Frescoes in Palazzo Pitti
Cortona had been patronized by the Tuscan community in Rome, hence it was not surprising when he was passing through Florence in 1637, that he should be asked by Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici to paint a series of frescoes intended to represent the four ages of man in a small room, the Sala della Stufa, in the Palazzo Pitti. The first two represented the "ages" of silver and gold.[8] In 1641, he was recalled to paint the 'Bronze Age' and 'Iron Age' frescoes. He began work on the decoration of the grand-ducal reception rooms on the first floor of the Palazzo Pitti, now part of the Palatine Gallery. In these five Planetary Rooms, the hierarchical sequence of the deities is based on Ptolomeic cosmology; Venus, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter (the Medici Throne room) and Saturn, but minus Mercury and the Moon which should have come before Venus.[9] These highly ornate ceilings with frescoes and elaborate stucco work essentially celebrate the Medici lineage and the bestowal of virtuous leadership.[10] Pietro left Florence in 1647, and his pupil and collaborator, Ciro Ferri, completed the cycle by the 1660s.[11]
Late works
For a number of years, Cortona was involved for decades in the decoration of the ceiling frescoes in the Oratorian Chiesa Nuova (Santa Maria in Vallicella) in Rome, a work not finished until 1665.[12] Other frescoes are in Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona (1651–4).
In 1660, he executed The Stoning of Saint Stephen for the church of San Ambrogio della Massima in Rome. The work currently hangs in the Hermitage.[13]
Towards the end of his life he devoted much of his time to architecture, but he published a treatise on painting in 1652 under a pseudonym and in collaboration. He refused invitations to both France and Spain.
Debate with Andrea Sacchi
He was elected as director of the Academy of St Luke the painter's guild in Rome, in 1634. It was at the Academy in 1636 that Cortona and Andrea Sacchi were involved in theoretical controversies regarding the number of figures that were appropriate in a painted work.[14]
Sacchi argued for few figures, since he felt it was not possible to grant meaningful individuality, a distinct role, to more than a few figures per scene. Cortona, on the other hand, lobbied for an art that could accommodate many subplots to a central concept. In addition, he also likely viewed the possibility of using many human figures in decorative detail or to represent a general concept. Sacchi's position would be reinforced in future years by Nicolas Poussin. Others have seen in this dichotomy, the long-standing debate whether visual art is about theoretical principles and meant to narrate a full story, or a painterly decorative endeavor, meant to delight the senses. Cortona was a director of the Accademia from 1634–1638.
Cortona employed or trained many prominent artists, who then disseminated his grand manner style. Apart from Ciro Ferri, others that worked in his studio included:
| Painter | Dates | Birthplace | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| (H) | |||
| Lazzaro Baldi | 1623–1703 | Pistoia, moved to Rome | (H)(W) |
| Francesco Bonifazio | (H)(W) | ||
| Lorenzo Berrettini (Cortona's nephew) | Florence | (W) | |
| Giovanni Ventura Borghesi | 1640–1708 | Rome | (H)(W) |
| Giovanni Maria Bottala | 1613- | Naples | (H) |
| Andrea Camassei | 1602–1649 | Bevagna, moved to Rome | (W) |
| Salvi Castellucci | 1608–1672 | Florence | (H)(W) |
| Carlo Cesi | 1626–1686 | (H)(W) | |
| Giovanni Coli | ?-1681 | (H)(W) | |
| Guglielmo Cortese (Il Borgognone) | (H)(W) | ||
| Vincenzo Dandini | 1607- | Florence | (W)(W) |
| Nicholas Duval | 1644- | The Hague | (H) |
| Onofrio Gabriello | 1616–1706 | Messina | (H) |
| Camillo Gabbrielli | (W) | ||
| Giacinto Gimignani | 1611–1681 | Pistoia, moved to Rome | (H)(W) |
| Filippo Gherardi | 1643–1701 | (H)(W) | |
| Paolo Gismondi | 1612–1685 | Perugia | (H)(W) |
| Luca Giordano | 1632 | Naples | (H) |
| Giovanni Battista Langetti | 1635–1676 | Genoa | (H) |
| Pietro Lucatelli | (W) | ||
| Giovanni Marracci | 1637–1704 | Lucca | (H)(W) |
| Livio Mehus (Lieven Mehus) | 1630–1691 | (Active Florence) | (H)(W) |
| Giovanni Battista Natali | 1630–1700 | (H) | |
| Adriano Palladino | 1610–1680 | Cortona | (MB) |
| Bartolomeo Palommo | 1612- | Rome | (H) |
| Pio Paolino | ? -1681 | Udine | (H) |
| Giovanni Quagliata | 1603–1673 | Messina | [15][16] |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli | 1617–1662 | (H)(W) | |
| Pietro Paolo Ubaldini | (13) | (H)(W) | |
| Raffaello Vanni | (W) | ||
| Adriano Zabarelli | (W) | ||
Romanelli and Camassei also trained under Domenichino. Giovanni Maria Bottalla was one of his assistants on the Barberini Ceiling. Sources for (W);[17] while sources for (H).[18][19] Source for MB is Bryan, Michael (1889). Walter Armstrong & Robert Edmund Graves. ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (Volume II L-Z). York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007: George Bell and Sons. http://books.google.com/?id=K2cCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=Michael+Bryan+Painters+Engravers#PPP7,M1.
Architectural projects
Among Cortona's more important architectural projects are the church of Santi Luca e Martina (completed in 1664, the church of the Accademia di San Luca, located in the Roman Forum. While Cortona was principe or director of the Accademia from 1634–38, he obtained permission to dig in the crypt of the church, which led the likely mistaken finding of remains attributed to the first century Roman martyr and Saint Martina. This discovery led to further patronage for construction of the church. The layout is almost a Greek cross, with four nearly identical wings extending from the striking central dome. Much of the ground structure is undecorated, above intricately decorated. The overwhelmingly vertical decoration of the facade is granted liveliness by horizontal convexity. In his will, this bachelor called this church his beloved daughter.
He also renovated the exterior renewal of the ancient Santa Maria della Pace (1656–1667), and the façade (with an unusual loggia) of Santa Maria in Via Lata (appr. 1660).
Another influential work for its day was the design and decoration of the Villa Pigneto commissioned by the Marchese Sacchetti.[20] This garden palace or casino gathered a variety of features in a novel fashion, including a garden facade with convex arms, and highly decorated niches, and elaborate tiered staircases surrounding a fountain.
Anatomical plates
Prior to becoming famous as an architect, Pietro drew anatomical plates that would not be engraved and published until a hundred years after his death. The plates in Tabulae anatomicae are now thought to have been started around 1618. The dramatic and highly studied poses effected by the figures are in keeping with the style of other Renaissance Baroque anatomical artists, although nowhere does such an approach find any fuller expression than in these plates.
Notes
- ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz (1975). Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm. ed (in German). Cortona, Pietro da (eigentlich: Pietro Berrettini da Cortona). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). 1. Hamm. cols. 1134–1135. ISBN 3-88309-013-1. http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/c/cortona_p.shtml.
- ^ His traditional year of birth is 1596 but as he was baptised on 27 November 1597, some more recent books on Cortona give his year of birth as 1597 as for example Pietro da Cortona 1597-1669, Lo Bianco A. (ed), Electa, 1997
- ^ the latter group included his uncle Filippo Berrettini
- ^ for exmple, Passeri, G.B. Vite de' Pittore Scultori ed Architetti deall'anno 1641 sino all'anno 1673, Hess J. Leipzig and Vienna 1934
- ^ The fresco of Galatea by Raphael is in the Villa Farnesina, Rome
- ^ These three canvases are now in the Capitoline Museum
- ^ Palazzo Barberini is now the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome.
- ^ Age of Gold
- ^ Campbell, Malcolm, Pietro da Cortona at the Pitti Palace. A Study of the Planetary Rooms and Related Projects, Princeton University Press, 1977, p. 78
- ^ Campbell, M. 1972, p. 146-154
- ^ Pietro Berrettini -Catholic Encyclopedia article
- ^ seen here
- ^ http://www.4enoch.org/wiki2/index.php?title=Stoning_of_St._Stephen_%281660_Pietro_da_Cortona%29,_art
- ^ Wittkower, R. Art & Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, Pelican, 263-5
- ^ Susinno, Francesco (1960). Felice Le Monnier. ed. Le vite dei pittori messinesi; text, introduction and bibliographic notes by Valentino Martinelli. Italy (originally published 1724 in Italy): Firenze.
- ^ Quagliata, Iana (2006). Giambattista Quagliata, Pittore E Architetto Del '600. Monza, Italy: Stampato da Quick Printing.
- ^ Wittkower R. p 543 and p 550.
- ^ J.R. Hobbes, p. 58.
- ^ *Hobbes, James R. (1849). Picture collector's manual; Dictionary of Painters. T. & W. Boone, 29 Bond Street, London; Digitized by Googlebooks (2006) from Oxford library. pp. 63–65. http://books.google.com/books?q=intitle:picture+intitle:collector's.
- ^ seen here
References
- Rendina, Claudio (2000). Enciclopedia di Roma. Rome: Newton Compton.
- Haskell, Francis (1980). Patrons and Painters; Art and Society in Baroque Italy. pp. 38–40, 60–62.
- Connors, Joseph (1998). "Pietro da Cortona 1597-1669". The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians: 318–321.
- Loire, Stéphane (1998). "Pietro da Cortona". The Burlington Magazine: 219–222.
- Merz, Jörg Martin: Pietro da Cortona and Roman Baroque Architecture, New Haven-London, Yale university Press 2008
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pietro da Cortona |
- Tabulae anatomicae
- Pietro da Cortona, A Design for a Quarantore at San Lorenzo in Damaso, c.1632
Gallery
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Pietà
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Virgin and Child with Saints
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Martyrdom of St Lawrence
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Ananias restores sight to St Paul
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Return of Hagar
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Guardian Angel
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Stoning of St Stephen
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'Romulus & Remus Sheltered by Faustulus
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Venus as Huntress Appears to Aeneas
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Rape of the Sabines
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