Famulus (possibly Fabulus, Fabullus, or Amulius [1] ) was a fresco painter famous for his work in the Domus Aurea, Rome, that was commissioned by Nero. [2]
Because he was mentioned by Pliny the Elder, he is one of the earliest artists in Europe for which a contemporary biography survives.
Famulus and assistants from his studio covered a large amount of the Domus Aurea wall with frescoes. Pliny, in his Natural History, recounts how Famulus went for only a few hours each day to the Golden House, to work while the light was right. Pliny the Elder presents him as one of the principal painters of the domus aurea:
More recently, lived Amulius, a grave and serious personage, but a painter in the florid style. By this artist there was a Minerva, which had the appearance of always looking at the spectators, from whatever point it was viewed. He only painted a few hours each day, and then with the greatest gravity, for he always kept the toga on, even when in the midst of his implements. The Golden Palace of Nero was the prison-house of this artist's productions, and hence it is that there are so few of them to be seen elsewhere." [3]
The Domus Aurea frescoes' effect on Italian Renaissance painting was profound; it can be seen most obviously in Raphael's decoration for the Vatican loggias. The white walls, delicate swags, and bands of frieze — framed reserves containing figures or landscapes — have returned at intervals ever since, notably in late 18th century Neoclassicism, making Famulus one of the most influential painters in the history of art, although it is not clear how original he actually was.
Art historian Nunzio Giustozzi writes that Famulus painted in Style IV of the Pompeian Styles into which 1st-century Roman wall-painting is classified, impressionist-like coloring with deep blue, green, indigo, purple, and cinnabar red, including motion and animation in the artwork. Famulus is credited with large mythological scenes, now lost, much like the large panel Achilles at Skyros. [2]
Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall. The word fresco is derived from the Italian adjective fresco meaning "fresh", and may thus be contrasted with fresco-secco or secco mural painting techniques, which are applied to dried plaster, to supplement painting in fresco. The fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting.
Gaius Plinius Secundus, called Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, natural philosopher, naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia, a comprehensive thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field.
Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi, professionally known as Domenico Ghirlandaio, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of the so-called "third generation" of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio, the Pollaiolo brothers and Sandro Botticelli.
The Domus Aurea was a vast landscaped complex built by the Emperor Nero largely on the Oppian Hill in the heart of ancient Rome after the great fire in 64 AD had destroyed a large part of the city.
Pinturicchio, or Pintoricchio, also known as Benetto di Biagio or Sordicchio, was an Italian Renaissance painter. He acquired his nickname because of his small stature and he used it to sign some of his artworks that were created during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The art of Ancient Rome, and the territories of its Republic and later Empire, includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Luxury objects in metal-work, gem engraving, ivory carvings, and glass are sometimes considered to be minor forms of Roman art, although they were not considered as such at the time. Sculpture was perhaps considered as the highest form of art by Romans, but figure painting was also highly regarded. A very large body of sculpture has survived from about the 1st century BC onward, though very little from before, but very little painting remains, and probably nothing that a contemporary would have considered to be of the highest quality.
The Baths of Titus or Thermae Titi were public baths (Thermae) built in 81 AD at Rome, by Roman emperor Titus. The baths sat at the base of the Esquiline Hill, an area of parkland and luxury estates which had been taken over by Nero for his Golden House or Domus Aurea. Titus' baths were built in haste, possibly by converting an existing or partly built bathing complex belonging to the reviled Domus Aurea. They were not particularly extensive, and the much larger Baths of Trajan were built immediately adjacent to them at the start of the next century.
Giovanni Nanni, also Giovanni de' Ricamatori, better known as Giovanni da Udine (1487–1564), was an Italian painter and architect born in Udine. A painter also named Giovanni da Udine was exiled from his native city in 1472.
Paul Bril was a Flemish painter and printmaker principally known for his landscapes. He spent most of his active career in Rome. His Italianate landscapes had a major influence on landscape painting in Italy and Northern Europe.
Amico Aspertini, also called Amerigo Aspertini, was an Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor whose complex, eccentric, and eclectic style anticipates Mannerism. He is considered one of the leading exponents of the Bolognese School of painting.
The Baths of Trajan were a massive thermae, a bathing and leisure complex, built in ancient Rome and dedicated under Trajan during the kalendae of July 109, shortly after the Aqua Traiana was dedicated.
Giovanni Baglione was an Italian Late Mannerist and Early Baroque painter and art historian. Although a prolific painter, Baglione is best remembered for his encyclopedic collection of biographies of the other artists working in Rome during his lifetime, and particularly his acrimonious relationship with the slightly younger artist Caravaggio through his art and writings.
Pausias was an ancient Greek painter of the first half of the 4th century BCE, of the school of Sicyon.
The Colossus of Nero was a 30-metre (98 ft) bronze statue that the Emperor Nero created in the vestibule of his Domus Aurea, the imperial villa complex which spanned a large area from the north side of the Palatine Hill, across the Velian ridge to the Esquiline Hill in Rome. It was modified by Nero's successors into a statue of the sun god Sol. The statue was eventually moved to a spot outside the Flavian Amphitheatre, which became known, by its proximity to the Colossus, as the Colosseum.
The Trinci Palace is a patrician residence in the center of Foligno, central Italy. It houses an archaeological museum, the city's picture gallery, a multimedia museum of Tournaments and Jousts and the Civic Museum.
The Domus Transitoria was Roman emperor Nero's first palace damaged or destroyed by the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, and then extended by his Domus Aurea.
The Vatican loggias are a corridor space in the Apostolic Palace, originally open to the elements on one side. Their construction was begun by Donato Bramante in 1512. They were decorated in fresco around 1519 by Raphael's large team of artists, with Giovanni da Udine involved. Because of the relative unimportance of the space, and a desire to copy the recently re-discovered Domus Aurea style of Ancient Roman painting, no large paintings were used, and the surfaces were mostly covered with grotesque designs on a white background, with paintings imitating sculptures in niches, and small figurative subjects in a revival of Ancient Roman style. This large array provided a repertoire of elements that were the basis for later artists creating grotesque decoration across Europe.
Peiraikos, or Piraeicus or Peiraeicus, was an Ancient Greek painter of uncertain date and location. He was the chief representative of what is called rhopography (ῥοπογραφία), or the painting of petty subjects, such as still-life. None of his work is known to have survived and he is known only from a brief discussion by the Latin author Pliny the Elder. Pliny's passage comes in the middle of his discussion of painting in Book XXXV of his Natural History, completed about 78 AD:
It is well to add an account of the artists who won fame with the brush in painting smaller pictures. Amongst them was Peiraikos. In mastery of his art but few take rank above him, yet by his choice of a path he has perhaps marred his own success, for he followed a humble line, winning however the highest glory that it had to bring. He painted barbers' shops, cobblers' stalls, asses, eatables and similar subjects, earning for himself the name of rhyparographos [painter of dirt/low things]. In these subjects he could give consummate pleasure, selling them for more than other artists received for their large pictures.
Augustan and Julio-Claudian art is the artistic production that took place in the Roman Empire under the reign of Augustus and the Julio-Claudian dynasty, lasting from 44 BC to 69 AD. At that time Roman art developed towards a serene "neoclassicism", which reflected the political aims of Augustus and the Pax Romana, aimed at building a solid and idealized image of the empire.
Painting in ancient Rome is a still poorly understood topic in the history of painting, as its study is hampered by the scarcity of relics. Much of what we know today about Roman painting is due to a natural tragedy. When the volcano Vesuvius erupted in AD 79 it buried two thriving cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum. Much of the population perished, but the buildings were partially preserved under the ashes and hardened lava, and with them their decorative wall paintings. From the study of this remaining collection, it has been possible to form a very suggestive panorama of the fertile and diverse artistic life of Ancient Rome between the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire, but this body of works is actually only a tiny fraction of the great quantity of painting produced in the entire Roman territory in the course of its long history, and precisely because this fraction is very rich, the loss of more significant and abundant testimonies from earlier and later periods, in techniques other than fresco and from other Romanized regions besides Campania is regrettable.