| A Virgin with a Unicorn | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Domenichino |
| Year | c. 1604–05 |
| Type | Fresco |
| Location | Palazzo Farnese, Rome |
A Virgin with a Unicorn(Fanciulla e l'unicorno) is a fresco painting by the Italian Baroque artist Domenichino, completed between c. 1604 and 1605. [1] It is in the collection of the Palazzo Farnese, in Rome. [2]
A Virgin with a Unicorn was created for the decoration for Galleria Farnese under the direction of Annibale Carracci, who died a few years later after the piece was finished. [3] The fresco was painted over the entrance and above the southeast wall of Galleria Farnese, an art gallery of Carracci, constituting one of his vault and ceiling frescos. It is the undisputed work of his student Domenichino, [2] but it may be doubtful whether it was his sole effort. [4]
The painting is an allegory of chastity between the virgin and the unicorn. It shows the unicorn being tamed in the lap of the virgin. The unicorn may always not symbolise virginity, [5] and in this case is likely allegorical. The artist highlights the shyness of both subjects, as the scene is set at the edge of the woods instead of the center of the landscape. The gentle atmopshere of the piece is in contrast to Carracci's bloody scenery of his Galleria Farnese. [4]
The painting has been connected to the controversy concerning Pope Alexander VI and his mistress Giulia Farnese, who died about eighty years before the painting was executed, and allegedly is an allegory of the relationship between the two. [6]
Agostino Carracci was an Italian painter, printmaker, tapestry designer, and art teacher. He was, together with his brother, Annibale Carracci, and cousin, Ludovico Carracci, one of the founders of the Accademia degli Incamminati in Bologna. Intended to devise alternatives to the Mannerist style favored in the preceding decades, this teaching academy helped propel painters of the School of Bologna to prominence.
Annibale Carracci was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother and cousin, Annibale was one of the progenitors, if not founders of a leading strand of the Baroque style, borrowing from styles from both north and south of their native city, and aspiring for a return to classical monumentality, but adding a more vital dynamism. Painters working under Annibale at the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese would be highly influential in Roman painting for decades.
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LudovicoCarracci was an Italian, early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker born in Bologna. His works are characterized by a strong mood invoked by broad gestures and flickering light that create spiritual emotion and are credited with reinvigorating Italian art, especially fresco art, which was subsumed with formalistic Mannerism. He died in Bologna in 1619.
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Odoardo Farnese was an Italian nobleman, the second son of Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Maria of Portugal, known for his patronage of the arts. He became a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church in 1591, and briefly acted as regent of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza for his nephew Odoardo from 1622 to 1626.
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The Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi is a palace in Rome, Italy. It was built by the Borghese family on the Quirinal Hill; its footprint occupies the site where the ruins of the baths of Constantine stood, whose remains still are part of the basement of the main building, the Casino dell'Aurora. Its first inhabitant was the famed art collector Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V, who wanted to be housed near the large papal Palazzo Quirinale. The palace and garden of the Pallavicini-Rospigliosi were the product of the accumulated sites and were designed by Giovanni Vasanzio and Carlo Maderno in 1611–16. Scipione owned this site for less than a decade, 1610–16, and commissioned the construction and decoration of the casino and pergolata, facing the garden of Montecavallo. The Roman palace of this name should not be mistaken for the panoramic Villa Pallavicino on the shores of Lake Como in Lombardy. The Palace has also been the scene of important cultural and religious events. On June 6, 1977 Princess Elvina Pallavicini invited in Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi the archbishop monsignor Marcel Lefebvre for a conference on the Second Vatican Council and for the celebration of a Traditiona Mass, under the careful direction of the marquis Roberto Malvezzi, and Frigate Captain marquis Luigi Coda Nunziante di San Ferdinando. Many members of Alleanza Cattolica, the baron Roberto de Mattei, the pharmacologist Giulio Soldani, the sociologist Massimo Introvigne, the psychiatrist Mario Di Fiorino and Attilio Tamburrini and his brother Renato Tamburrini took part to the event.
The Carracci were a Bolognese family of artists that played an instrumental role in bringing forth the Baroque style in painting. Brothers Annibale (1560–1609) and Agostino (1557–1602) along with their cousin Ludovico (1555–1619) worked collaboratively. The Carracci family left their legacy in art theory by starting a school for artists in 1582. The school was called the Accademia degli Incamminati, and its main focus was to oppose and challenge Mannerist artistic practices and principles in order to create a renewed art of naturalism and expressive persuasion.
Giovanni Battista Agucchi was an Italian churchman, Papal diplomat and writer on art theory. He was the nephew and brother of cardinals, and might have been one himself if he had lived longer. He served as secretary to the Papal Secretary of State, then the Pope himself, on whose death Agucchi was made a titular bishop and appointed as nuncio to Venice.
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The Assumption of the Virgin by Annibale Carracci is the altarpiece of the famous Cerasi Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. The large panel painting was created in 1600–1601. The artwork is somewhat overshadowed by the two more famous paintings of Caravaggio on the side walls of the chapel: The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus and The Crucifixion of Saint Peter. Both painters were important in the development of Baroque art but the contrast is striking: Carracci's Virgin glows with even light and radiates harmony, while the paintings of Caravaggio are dramatically lit and foreshortened.
The Archery Contest of Diana and Her Nymphs is a 1616 oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian artist Domenichino. The painting is also known as Diana and her Nymphs after the Hunt,Diana Hunting, and even The Hunt of Diana. It was commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, but was stolen from him by Cardinal Scipione Borghese. It is now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, Italy.