Guillaume Courtois
Guillaume Courtois or italianized as Guglielmo Cortese, called Il Borgognone or Le Bourguignon, was a French-Italian painter and etcher. He was active in Rome as a history and staffage painter and enjoyed high-level patronage, he was the brother of the painters Jacques Courtois and Jean-François Courtois. Guillaume Courtois was born in Saint-Hippolyte, Doubs, in France as the son of the obscure painter Jean-Pierre Courtois. Little is known about Guillaume’s youth but it is assumed he received his initial training from his father; the father and his sons went to Italy circa 1636. They travelled to Milan, Venice and Siena; the movements of the brothers Courtois are not well documented, which has led to alternative theories. It is possible Guillaume Courtois settled in Rome by 1638 where he entered the studio of Pietro da Cortona. Here he is supposed to have supplemented his training by drawing from life and copying works of Giovanni Lanfranco and Andrea Sacchi, he studied the Bolognese painters and Guercino, formed for himself a classicizing style with little express mannerism resembling that of Carlo Maratta.
Another view of the movements of the brothers that has gained support with modern scholars is that Guillaume and Jacques remained together until the 1640s and that Guillaume Courtois only came under the influence of da Cortona when he worked under him in 1656. Guillaume Courtois spent most of his active life in Rome where he died of gout on 14 or 15 June 1679. Jean-Blaise Chardon and Antonio Dupré were his pupils. Guillaume Courtois was a history painter of Christian religious and mythological scenes, he was in demand as a staffage painter. He is sometimes referred to as a battle painter because of his involvement in the decorative project in the chapel of the Congregation of the Jesuits, a small oratory housed in a room of the Collegio Romano adjacent to the Sant'Ignazio Church, Rome; this was a collaborative effort of the brothers Jacques. It is now established that Jacques -, a specialist in battle scenes - painted the battles in the backgrounds. Guillaume painted the scenes that depict victories attributed to the intervention of the Virgin: Heraclius defeats the armies of Chosroes, St. Pulcheria, The Triumph of Emperor Zimisches, The Battle of Louis IX of France, Julian the Apostate pierced by Saint Mercurius.
Early drawings of Guillaume Courtois represent battle scenes and show that he was influenced by his brother. He produced a few portraits and collaborated with other artists on genre paintings. Courtois' first major public commissions were frescoes for the San Rome. Pietro da Cortona recommended the two brothers to Niccolò Sagredo, the Venetian ambassador in Rome who wished to have the church decorated, he painted the Battle of Joshua for the Gallery of Alexander VII in the Quirinal Palace and the Martyrdom of St Andrew for the high altar of the Sant'Andrea al Quirinale. These early works show the influence of Cortona, combined with the influence of the Baroque style of Agostino Carracci through the mediation of the more dynamic version offered by Giovanni Lanfranco’s work; these influences are reflected in the exuberance in form and color that will remain characteristic of Courtois’ work. The style of Pier Francesco Mola formed a factor in his development, he worked alongside Mola, Gaspard Dughet, Francesco Cozza, Giovanni Battista Tassi on the decoration of the Valmontone Palace of Camillo Francesco Maria Pamphili around 1658-1659.
Some figures painted by Courtois in this Palace were attributed to Mola. In 1661, he painted an Assumption for the church of San Tommaso da Villanova in Castelgandolfo in Ozzola. In his mature work he further showed the influence of Carlo Maratta, an artist who fused the Baroque and Classicist styles; this is reflected in the sweet faces of the female figures in works such as the Madonna of the Rosary for the St. George Church in Monte Porzio Catone made in 1666 on a commission by prince Giovanni Battista Borghese. In addition to the frequent collaborations with his brother Jacques, a number of collaborations between Guillaume Courtois and Abraham Brueghel, a Flemish still life painter active in Rome, are recorded. An example is the Still life of flowers with a figure; the still life was painted by Brueghel. The painting is a variant of the Grapes and pomegranate with a vase of flowers and a female figure, dated to the end of the 1660s. Courtois reprised the charming female figure in his Fruit Picker, a collaboration with Michele Pace del Campidoglio.
He collaborated on public works with Bernini, who admired his work and recommended him for commissions, Carlo Maratta. In 1653 he painted the figures of St. Eustace, the Good Samaritan, a St. Mary of Egypt and St. Augustine in four large landscapes of Gaspard Dughet; this was one of the earliest documented commissions of Courtois and the patron was Camillo Francesco Maria Pamphili. The next year Courtois and Dughet collaborated again for the same patron on works for the Palazzo Pamphilj. Guillaume Courtois was a skilled draughtsman as is testified by the many preparatory studies he left behind and which can be found, amongst others, in the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica. Preparatory drawings are in chalk, whereas compositional designs tend to be in pen and ink and wash; the preparatory studies in chalk for The Martyrdom of St Mark fresco in San Marco
Domenico Maria Canuti
Domenico Maria Canuti was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active in Bologna and Rome. He was a major painter of fresco decorations, his ceiling decorations showed a mix of Roman influences. Born in Bologna, Canuti first trained in that city under Guido Reni with Guercino, he painted many wall frescoes. From 1650 to 1660 and in the 1670s, he was employed in Rome where he painted the quadratura decoration of the ceiling of church of Santi Domenico e Sisto with the Apotheosis of Saint Dominic, he was patronized by the Olivetans. He was employed with Carlo Maratta in the decoration of Palazzo Altieri, he completed frescoes for the Palazzo Colonna in Rome. Returning to Bologna, he completed frescoes in the library of San Michele in Bosco and the Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande, in the Ducal Palace at Mantua, he helped fresco the Palazzo Felicini in Bologna with Giacomo Alboresi. He employed Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Giovanni Antonio Burrini, Antonio Maria Haffner,Giulio Pisanelli, Girolamo Negri, Giovanni Battista Caccioli in his studio.
Many of these went to work for Lorenzo Pasinelli. The Bolognese sculptor Giuseppe Maria Mazza trained in his studio. Canuti was active as an engraver. Among his graphic works are portraits of Ludovico and Annibale Carracci, The Virgin in the Clouds with Christ, St. Francis Praying after Guido Reni. Canuti died in Bologna. Media related to Domenico Maria Canuti at Wikimedia Commons
Pietro del Pò
Pietro del Pò spelled del Po, was an Italian painter and draughtsman of the Baroque. He was more distinguished as an engraver than as a painter. Pietro was born in Palermo in the son of Francesco Jacopo and Francesca lo Po, he began to draw at a early age and began to paint under the guidance of an unknown master. He married Maria Monforti on 12 July 1637 in the parish of Santa Croce in Palermo. After the death of his wife, he moved to Naples in 1644 inspired by the need for a more stimulating environment. Naples was in fact a lively artistic center, dominated by the presence of such artists as Jusepe de Ribera and Giovanni Lanfranco, it was indeed this classicist style that provided an interest for Del Pò. The sources indicate that he was a student of Domenichino, but direct contact with the Bolognese artist is now disputed. Rather, it seems probable that he studied with Lanfranco between 1644 and 1646. During those same years he came into contact with artists such as Ribera, Francesco Vaccaro, Massimo Stanzione, Charles Mellin.
Here, he was married to the widow Maffei, Porzia Campagna. In 1647, Pietro and his family moved to Rome in order to be near Lanfranco, who had just returned to the capital and for whom Del Pò had become “his most useful assistant”. In 1649 his daughter Teresa, who also became an engraver and painter. Between 1651 and 1652 Del Pò lived on Via Margutta, the artists' quarter, where he met Jean Dughet, for whom he produced several etchings after subjects by Nicholas Poussin. In fact, it seems that Poussin assigned to Dughet the task of reproducing his paintings in etchings, dedicated them to his most important patrons. De Domenici believed. In 1652 he was admitted to the Virtuosi al Pantheon, he became a member of the Academy of St. Luke that year, where he served as lecturer in anatomy and perspective, following the death of Orfeo Boselli, Del Pò was elected its president in 1668 but refused the post. In 1652, his son Giacomo was born who became a well known painter and, like his sister Teresa, a member of the Academy of St. Luke.
A. Bertolotti published an undated document belonging to Del Pò’s Roman period, which represents Del Pò’s plea to the governor of Rome to absolve him of the accusations of cannibalism and silver theft from the church of Saint Peter's Basilica; these accusations were damaged his reputation and his business. According to Pascoli, Pietro succeeded in the Roman artistic environment because of the esteem and patronage of several influential Spaniards, including the ambassador, who recommended Del Pò to his successor when he returned to Spain. In March 1683 the painter and his family returned to Naples and remained there until Pietro’s death on 22 July 1692, with the exception of a brief stay in Palermo; the artistic production of Pietro del Pò was vast, but it is difficult today for us to compile his catalogue. The sources mention numerous works without, supplying further information. Perez Sanchez attempted an initial catalogue. Sixteen small paintings on copper illustrating scenes from the life of the Virgin, now in the cathedral of Toledo, are among his most notable works.
Two paintings, “Saint Leocadia” and “Saint Ildelfonso” and a third entitled “The Virgin Adored by the Regents of Spain with Saints Michael and Santiago” are in the cathedral of Toledo. However, the painting most mentioned in the sources, “Saint Leo,” executed for the church of Santa Maria di Constantinopoli in Rome, where it remained until 1700, is now lost; the works that Del Pò produced in Naples include twelve paintings with the scene from the Passion of Christ and several frescoes, now destroyed, representing the Resurrection and Assumption, all painted for the church of Santa Barbara in Castel Nuovo. Pietro painted religious subjects, less profane historical and mythological themes, his compositions and his female figure types reveal the influence of Domenichino’s classicism and of Bolognese art, the influence of Charles Mellin, with whom Del Pò was in close contact, has been noted. Scholars point out Pietro’s precise and detailed ability as a draftsman more than his ability as a colorist, in fact he appears to have remained tied to his early classical training without responding to the new trends in the Roman Baroque.
He attained his most original results as a draftsman, but his activity in this field is difficult to define. It seems that Pietro considered drawing an independent art and not a preliminary stage for etchings. However, only after the many anonymous drawings and those dubiously attributed to Domenichino and others in the circle have been attributed, will it be possible to assess his skill in this area. Del Pò is best known as an etcher who reproduced the paintings of the most important seventeenth-century artists, his choice of subjects reveals a preference for classical themes, he reproduced the works of Domenichino, Nicholas Poussin and the Carracci. In addition, requests for his etchings came from abroad, as evidenced by several prints published in Paris by Bertrand and Coypel. Led by Bartsch, most scholars discuss Del Pò’s work favourably and point out his talent as a draftsman. Although the artist retouched selected details of his etchings with burin, the different states do not reveal outstanding variations, the only changed are made by the publishers who added their addresses, dedications, or other modifications to the plates.
Among his prints are: St. John i
Gaspard Dughet
Gaspard Dughet known as Gaspard Poussin, was a French painter born in Rome. Dughet was born in the son of a French pastry-cook and his Italian wife, he has always been considered as a French painter, although in fact he never visited France. In around 1635 he became a pupil of Nicolas Poussin, who had married his sister Anne five years earlier; because of this connection he was known as "Gaspard Poussin"He specialised in painting landscapes of the Roman Campagna becoming, along with his exact contemporary Salvator Rosa, one of the two leading landscape painters of his time. He painted several cycles of frescoes, including one, showing various sites around Rome, at the Colonna Palace, he worked with Pier Francesco Mola and Mattia Preti at the Palazzo Pamphilj in Valmontone. He collaborated with Guillaume Courtois who painted the staffage in his landscapes; this was the case, for instance, in the works for the Palazzo Pamphilj. There is another fresco cycle by Dughet, though in a bad state of preservation, in San Martino ai Monti.
Dughet died in Rome on 27 May 1675. During the 18th century Dughet's work became popular amongst British collectors, to such an extent that his name became attached to any classical landscape, his style proved influential on British landscape painting and garden design, his Sacrifice of Abraham, once the property of the Colonna, is now, with other of his works, in the National Gallery, London. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Poussin, Nicolas". Encyclopædia Britannica. 22. Cambridge University Press. P. 222
Palazzo Pamphilj
See Palazzo Doria PamphiljPalazzo Pamphilj spelled Palazzo Pamphili, is a palace facing onto the Piazza Navona in Rome. It was built between 1644 and 1650. Since 1920 the palace has housed the Brazilian Embassy in Italy, in October 1960 it became the property of the Federative Republic of Brazil in a purchase negotiation led by Ambassador Hugo Gouthier de Oliveira Gondim. In 1644, Cardinal Giambattista Pamphilj of the powerful Pamphilj family, who owned a palace between the Piazza Navona and the Via Pasquino, became Pope Innocent X. With this election came the desire for a larger more magnificent building to reflect his family’s increased prestige. Further land was bought, the architect Girolamo Rainaldi received the commission and construction began in 1646; the new project was to incorporate some existing buildings, including the former palace of the Pamphilj and the Palazzo Cibo. In 1647, the Baroque architect Francesco Borromini was consulted about the design and he made a series of new proposals for the palace.
However, the prevailing preference was for Rainaldi’s more staid and conservative design. Borromini’s limited contributions included the stucco decoration of the salone and design of the Gallery, located at first floor level between the rest of the palace and the church of St. Agnese next door; the Gallery extends through the width of the block with a large Serliana window at either end. Between 1651 and 1654, the painter Pietro da Cortona was commissioned to decorate the Gallery vault, his secular fresco cycle depicts scenes from the life of Aeneas, the legendary founder of Rome, as recounted by Virgil. The Pamphili claim to be descended from Aeneas. Unlike the large spacious volume of the Palazzo Barberini in which he had painted his fresco celebrating the reign of Innocent’s predecessor, Urban VIII Barberini, the Pamphilj Gallery was long with a low vault which meant that a single viewpoint to see the frescoes was not possible. So Cortona devised a series of scenes around a central painted framed ‘Apotheosis of Aeneas’ into the Olympian heavens.
The elaborate doorframes spaced along the longer walls of the Gallery display a combination of motifs used by Borromini and by Cortona The plan has three courtyards. The rooms on the piano nobile have frescoes and friezes by artists such as Giacinto Gimignani, Gaspard Dughet, Andrea Camassei, Giacinto Brandi, Francesco Allegrini, Pier Francesco Mola. Carlo Rainaldi, the son of Girolamo, completed the building around 1650; the new palazzo became the home of Innocent's widowed and unpopular sister-in-law Olimpia Maidalchini, his confidante and advisor and, more scurrilously, reputed to be his mistress. She was the mother of Camillo Pamphilj, the one time cardinal, who through his marriage came into the possession of the Palazzo Aldobrandini, now known as the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj. Confusingly, until the unification of the Doria and Pamphilj surnames both palazzi were known as Palazzo Pamphilj, or in the case of today's Doria Pamphilj sometimes "Palazzo Pamfilio". Both spellings Pamphilj and Pamphili are in common Italian usage though the family prefers Pamphilj.
Leonie Stephanie. The Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona: Constructing Identity In Early Modern Rome, 2008, Harvey Miller. Magnuson Torgil. Rome in the Age of Bernini, volume II, Almquist & Wiksell, Stockholm, 1986, Chapter 1 Innocent X Brazilian Embassy in Rome Official website Palazzo Pamphilj Virtual tour
Italy
Italy the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Austria and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km2 and has a temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe. Due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Italy has been home to a myriad of peoples and cultures. In addition to the various ancient peoples dispersed throughout modern-day Italy, the most famous of which being the Indo-European Italics who gave the peninsula its name, beginning from the classical era and Carthaginians founded colonies in insular Italy and Genoa, Greeks established settlements in the so-called Magna Graecia, while Etruscans and Celts inhabited central and northern Italy respectively; the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC, which became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People.
The Roman Republic conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the peninsula, in some cases through the establishment of federations, the Republic expanded and conquered parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. By the first century BC, the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became the leading cultural and religious centre of Western civilisation, inaugurating the Pax Romana, a period of more than 200 years during which Italy's technology, economy and literature flourished. Italy remained the metropole of the Roman Empire; the legacy of the Roman Empire endured its fall and can be observed in the global distribution of culture, governments and the Latin script. During the Early Middle Ages, Italy endured sociopolitical collapse and barbarian invasions, but by the 11th century, numerous rival city-states and maritime republics in the northern and central regions of Italy, rose to great prosperity through shipping and banking, laying the groundwork for modern capitalism.
These independent statelets served as Europe's main trading hubs with Asia and the Near East enjoying a greater degree of democracy than the larger feudal monarchies that were consolidating throughout Europe. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science and art. Italian culture flourished, producing famous scholars and polymaths such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Machiavelli. During the Middle Ages, Italian explorers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, John Cabot and Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Italy's commercial and political power waned with the opening of trade routes that bypassed the Mediterranean. Centuries of infighting between the Italian city-states, such as the Italian Wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, left the region fragmented, it was subsequently conquered and further divided by European powers such as France and Austria.
By the mid-19th century, rising Italian nationalism and calls for independence from foreign control led to a period of revolutionary political upheaval. After centuries of foreign domination and political division, Italy was entirely unified in 1871, establishing the Kingdom of Italy as a great power. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Italy industrialised, namely in the north, acquired a colonial empire, while the south remained impoverished and excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influential diaspora. Despite being one of the main victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, leading to the rise of a fascist dictatorship in 1922. Participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in military defeat, economic destruction and the Italian Civil War. Following the liberation of Italy and the rise of the resistance, the country abolished the monarchy, reinstated democracy, enjoyed a prolonged economic boom and, despite periods of sociopolitical turmoil became a developed country.
Today, Italy is considered to be one of the world's most culturally and economically advanced countries, with the sixth-largest worldwide national wealth. Its advanced economy ranks eighth-largest in the world and third in the Eurozone by nominal GDP. Italy owns the third-largest central bank gold reserve, it has a high level of human development, it stands among the top countries for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military and diplomatic affairs. Italy is a founding and leading member of the European Union and a member of numerous international institutions, including the UN, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the WTO, the G7, the G20, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Council of Europe, Uniting for Consensus, the Schengen Area and many more; as a reflection
Santa Francesca Romana, Rome
Santa Francesca Romana known as Santa Maria Nova, is a church in Rome, situated next to the Roman Forum in the rione Campitelli. The church was built in the tenth century, incorporating an eighth-century oratory that Pope Paul I excavated in the wing of the portico of the Temple of Venus and Roma; the interior has been altered since. Since 1352 the church has been in the care of the Olivetans. In the 16th century, the church was rededicated to Frances of Rome, canonized in 1608 and whose relics are in the crypt. In her youth it was served by Benedictine monks, its travertine porch and façade is by Carlo Lambardi, was completed in 1615. The inscriptions found in Santa Francesca Romana, a valuable source illustrating the history of the church, have been collected and published by Vincenzo Forcella; the interior, a single nave with side chapels, was rebuilt by Lombardi in the years preceding Francesca Buzzi's canonization, beginning in 1595. In the middle of the nave is the rectangular schola cantorum of the old church, covered in Cosmatesque mosaics.
Another prominent feature is the confessional designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in polychrome marbles with four columns veneered in jasper. The sacristy houses the precious Madonna Glycophilousa, an early 5th-century icon brought from Santa Maria Antiqua; the twelfth-century Madonna and Child had been painted over. It was meticulously detached from the panel in 1950; the ancient oratory on which the current church was built was located by Pope Paul I on the place in which Simon Magus died. According to this legend, Simon Magus wanted to prove his powers as stronger than those of the apostles, started levitating in front of Sts. Peter and Paul; the two apostles fell on their knees preaching, Simon fell, dying. The basalt stones where the apostles were imprinted by the knees of the two apostles are embedded in the wall of the south transept; the tomb of Pope Gregory XI, who returned the papacy to Rome from Avignon, reconstructed to a design by Per Paulo Olivieri is in the south transept. The Deaconry was suppressed on 8 August 1661.
S. Maria Nova was reestablished, as the Titulus of a Cardinal Priest, on 17 March 1887 by Pope Leo XIII; the titulus of the church remains Sancta Mariae Novae. A Cardinal Priest no longer has any jurisdiction over its clergy, he is only the Cardinal Protector. Saint Francesca Romana has been named the patron of car drivers, because of a legend that an angel used to light her way with a lamp when she travelled at night. Automobiles line up on the day of her feast as far as the Colosseum; the facade of the Church of Holy Cross College, in Clonliffe in Dublin, Ireland, is a replica of Santa Francesca Romana. It was designed by the Gothic Architect J. J. McCarthy and is the only exception to his list of Gothic works. Aymeric de la Chatre. Giovanni. Hieronymus Ughizio. Matthaeus. Bernardo Pietro Valeriano Duraguerra. Raimundus de Got. Raimundus de Fargis. Pierre Roger de Beaufort Elected Pope Gregory XI. Ludovico de Altavilla. Amadeo de Saluzzo. Marino Buleanus, OSB. Jacobus de Torso Utinensis Pietro Barbo translated to S. Marco Pope Paul II Francesco Gonzaga.
Giovanni Arcimboldo. Giovanni Battista Orsini. Translated to SS. Giovanni e Paolo. Cesare Borgia resigned. Raymond Pérault, OSA. Francesco Lloris y de Borja. Sigismondo Gonzaga. Ercole Gonzaga. Federico Gonzaga. Ippolito d'Este. Filippo Guastavillani. Andreas von Austria. Alessandro d'Este. Translated to the Deaconry of S. Eustachio. Maurizio di Savoia. Translated to the Deaconry of S. Eustachio. Ippolito Aldobrandini translated to the Deaconry of S. Angelo in Pescheria. Marzio Ginetti. Translated to the Deaconry of S. Angelo in Pescheria. Giulio Gabrielli. Translated to the Deaconry of S. Agata de' Goti. Virginio Orsini, OSIoHieros.. Translated to the Deaconry of S. Maria in Cosmedin. Rinaldo d'Este. Translated to the Deaconry of S. Niccolo in Carcere. Giancarlo de' Medi
