Giovanni Lanfranco

Crowning of the Virgin with Saints Augustine and William
Sant'Agostino

Giovanni Lanfranco 1582 - 1647

Giovanni Lanfranco was a Baroque painter born near Parma in the region of Emilia-Romagna. 

He was first began his apprenticeship with artist Agostino Carracci then moving to Annibale Carracci's workshop in Rome where he began his first works on Galleria Farnese's ceiling frescoes. Working alongside Guido Reni and Francesco Albani he decorated San Gregorio Magno al Celio and the Cappela Paolina in Santa Maria Maggiore.

By 1605 he was receiving independent commissions.

In 1609 Lanfranco returned to Parma after the death Annibale Carracci, where he stayed for two years producing paintings and altarpieces in Orvieto, Vallerano, Leonessa and Fermo.

On his return to Rome in 1612 he competed with Domenichino and other Carracci students for patrons. During this time his studio painted frescoes in Palazzo Mattei and The Buongiovanni Chapel in Sant'Agostino and the Annunciation in San Carlo ai Catinari.

He became one of the favourite painters of Pope Paul V and painted the large ceiling fresco of the Gods of Olympus at the Villa Borghese.

Giovanni Lanfranco was knighted by Pope Urban VIII and his last work was the apse of San Carlo ai Catinari. He died in Rome in 1647.

Giovanni Lanfranco Art in Rome
Palazzo Farnese

St William being cured by the Virgin
Sant'Agostino

San Gregorio Magno
Santa Maria Maggiore
Palazzo Mattei
Sant'Agostino
The Buongiovanni Chapel
Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte
San Carlo ai Catinari
Palazzo del Quirinale
San Giovanni dei Florentini
Sacchetti Chapel
Chiesa Nuova
Crucifix Chapel
Sant'Andrea della Valle
Assumption of the Virgin dome
Gesù e Maria
Galleria Borghese
Ceiling fresco the Gods of Olympus

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica
Venus Playing the Harp
The Elevation of Mary Magdalen
The Transfiguration
Thamar and Giuda
St Ursula and the Virgins
Galleria Doria Pamphilj
Susanna and the Elders
St Peter Crying
Saint Peter's Basilica
Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini
San Giovanni Decollato

Sant'Agnese in Agone

where: Piazza Navona

open: 9:00-13:00 & 15:00-19:00, closed Mondays

Sant'Agnese in Agone is a 17th century Baroque church designed in 1653 by architect Francesco Borromini for the Pamphilj pope, Innocent X. 

It was built on the site of a previous church dedicated to Saint Agnes, a young virgin who was martyred in the 4th century. Agnes refused to be married as she had promised herself to God, so she was tortured and sent to a brothel, her modesty was saved by the miraculous growing of her hair to cover her nakedness, she was then condemned to death.

Beneath the church are the Roman ruins believed to be the crypt where Saint Agnes was humiliated and can be visited via a staircase behind the left pillar of the altar of St Alexis.

The church interior is decorated with statues by Baroque artists Alessandro Alegardi, Domenico Guido, Ercole Ferrata and Antonio Raggi.

The dome frescoes of the Assumption are by Ciro Ferri (1670) and the pendentives, by il Baciccio date from between 1662 and 1672.

In front of the church is Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers. Bernini and Borromini were great rivals of the Baroque, often fighting for the same commissions and there is a legend that Bernini purposely designed one of his giants in the fountain with an arm raised to protect himself from Borromini's church toppling onto the fountain — the legend is clearly untrue as Bernini's fountain was installed well before the church was finished.

Daniele da Volterra (1509 - 1566)

Deposition
Trinità dei Monti

It is sad to think that Daniele da Volterra is often only remembered as il Braghettone (the Breeches Maker) – the man who painted fig-leaves and underwear on Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.
Daniele da Volterra was a Mannerist painter and sculptor. He was born in Volterra and it is thought that he studied with il Sodoma and Baldassare Peruzzi in Siena. Around 1535 he was documented working with Perino del Vega in Rome. He met and became friends with Michelangelo who assisted in gaining him commissions from the papacy and Volterra based many of his paintings on his sketches and designs.

In the 1540s he was commissioned to work on the Orsini chapel in the Trinità dei Monti where he painted the Deposition and another lost work. In the 1550s he returned to decorate the Rovere chapel with the Assumption of the Virgin, the Massacre of the Innocents and the Presentation of the Virgin.
In 1555 he began his commission in the Ricci chapel in San Pietro in Montorio with scenes of John the Baptist. It was completed after his death by his assistants in 1568.

It was towards the end of Volterra's life, and during the Catholic church's Counter-Reformation, when Paul IV commissioned him to over-paint drapery and fig-leaves on the nude figures on the Last Judgement.

Daniele da Volterra Art in Rome
Trinità dei Monti
The Assumption of the Virgin
Massacre of the Innocents
The Presentation of the Virgin
Deposition
Galleria Doria Pamphilj
Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist
San Marcello al Corso
San Pietro in Montorio
The Vatican – Sala Regia
Palazzo Farnese

Federico & Taddeo Zuccari

Federico Zuccari
Mercury and Minerva
Villa Farnese at Caprarola

Federico Zuccari c. 1542 - 1609 Taddeo Zuccari 1529 - 1566

Taddeo and Federico Zuccari were born in Sant' Angelo Vado in The Marches and were taught to draw by their father. When Taddeo was 14 he left for Rome alone, where he studied other artists' works and was employed in various workshops.

Federico's documented career began in 1550 when he was invited to Rome to work with his brother who was already an established artist.

The brothers worked together on projects at the Vatican and when Federico was eighteen he was commissioned to paint the Transfiguration, the Marriage at Cana and other scenes from the Life of Christ in the Casino of Pius IV.

In around 1556 Taddeo painted scenes of the Passion for the Mattei Chapel in Santa Maria della Consolazione and worked on the frescoes of the Life of Saint Paul in the Frangipani Chapel in San Marcello al Corso, painted mostly in 1560 and completed by Federico.

Taddeo died in 1566 and is buried in the Pantheon.

Federico worked not only in Rome but also in Venice and Florence where he was admitted into the Accademia del Designo.

In 1570 he travelled to Orvieto and painted Christ Healing the Blind Man and Christ Raising the Son of the Widow of Nain for the Orvieto Cathedral.

In 1574 he travelled to the Netherlands, Spain and England painting a portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots and a drawing of Elizabeth I, when he returned to Florence later that year he completed the fresco of the Last Judgement in the cathedral left unfinished by Vasari.
In 1581, on his returned to Rome to continue work on the Pauline Chapel, he was temporarily expelled by his patron, Pope Gregory XIII after offending his critics in court with a satirical painting in the Porta Virtutis.

He returned to Rome only after his friends and other patrons secured a pardon from the Pope and then resumed his work on the Pauline Chapel.

Federico died in 1609 not long after becoming a Cavaliere.

His house in Rome, Palazzo Zuccaro, which he designed with a doorway in the form of a grotesque face and matching windows either side was used as a headquarters for the Accademia di San Luca founded in 1583 and is now Biblioteca Hertziana.

Federico Zuccari Art in Rome

Vatican
Sala Regia
in Casino Pius IV:
Transfiguration
The Marriage at Cana
Scenes from the Life of Christ
in Pauline Chapel:
fresco of the Baptism of Cornelius
Arms of Gregory III
The Pentecost
The Mission of the Apostles
Il Gesù
The vault and altarpiece Cappella degli Angeli
Santa Sabina
frescoes of scenes from the Life of St Hyacinth
Frescoes vault in the Chapel of S. Giacinto
Trinità dei Monti
San Marcello
San Lorenzo in Damaso
Altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin with Saints Lawrence, Paul, Peter and Damasus
Santa Caterina dei Funari
Conversion of the Empress Faustina
The Disputation of Saint Catherine

Christ Driving the Money-changers from the Temple
Ecco Homo
Santa Lucia del Gonfalone
decorative cycle of the scenes of the Passion (with Jacopo Bertoia and Raffaellino da Reggio and others)
Santa Maria dell'Orto
Orvieto Cathedral
Christ Healing the Blind Man
Christ Raising the Son of the Widow of Nain
Villa d'Este Tivoli (for Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este)
ceiling decoration of the Sala della Fama and Sala della Gloria
Villa Farnese Caprarola


Taddeo Zuccari Art in Rome
Galleria Pallavicini-Rospigliosi
Crucifixion
Galleria Borghese
Dead Christ supported by Angels
Santa Maria dell'Orto
Santa Maria della Consolazione
Mattei Chapel Scenes of the Passion
San Marcello
Frangipani Chapel frescoes of the Life of St Paul and The Conversion of Saul
Trinità dei Monti
Pucci Chapel:
Death of the Virgin (begun by Perino del Vaga)
Santa Sabina
Christ in Glory apse
Vatican
Sala Regia over-door decoration

Caravaggio

Sant'Agostino

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 1571-1610
Michelangelo Merisi was a Baroque artist known as Caravaggio, named after the town where he was born. When he was very young his father, grandfather and uncle died from the plague, leaving his mother a widow to bring up four children.

In 1584 he entered the workshop of Simone Peterzano in Milan and by the time he was twenty he was working in Rome at the studio of Giuseppe Cesari painting still-life fruit and flowers.

Caravaggio was often in trouble with the law for brawling with other painters, soldiers, labourers or police officers.

In 1594 he appeared amongst the employees of Cardinal de Monte whose household he stayed with until 1600. The cardinal introduced him to Roman collectors including the Barberini Family.

During this time he painted Sick Bacchus and Young Boy with Basket of Fruit and received his first commission, the decoration of the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi.

In 1605 he was in trouble with the law, escaping to Genoa after wounding a scribe and again in 1606 after murdering an acquaintance during a racket match. He escaped to Naples and while here he painted the seven works of the Mercy of the Madonna and the Madonna Rosario. Caravaggio, a fugitive, could have been captured and executed anywhere in Italy and he waited in vain for a pardon from the Pope. He left for Malta where he painted the Beheading of John the Baptist, was captured and then fled to Sicily, returning to Naples in 1609, he was assaulted and wounded in a tavern brawl and then finally received his pardon and could return to Rome only to die during the voyage. He was not yet 40 years old.

Caravaggio Art in Rome
Galleria Borghese
Young Boy with Basket of Fruit
The Sick Bacchus
St. Jerome
The Madonna dei Palafrenieri
David with the Head of Goliath
San Giovannino
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica
The Decapitation of Holofernes
The Narcissus
St John the Baptist in the Desert
Galleria Doria Pamphilj
The Maddalena
Pinacoteca Vaticana
The Deposition of Christ
Pinacoteca Capitoline
The Good Luck
St John the Baptist
Santa Maria della Concezione
St Francis Meditating
San Luigi dei Francesi
St Matthew and the Angel
Martyrdom of St Matthew
Vocation of St Matthew
Sant'Agostino
The Madonna dei Pellegrini
Santa Maria del Popolo
Conversion of St Paul
Crucifixion of St Peter