Life
Inexplicably ignored by biographers and art historians, Martinelli was long left in the shadows. As Luigi Lanzi suggested in his History of Painting in Italy [1] in 1847, his works however deserve far more attention. On the 400th anniversary of his birth, the artist finally received the acknowledgement he merits; He was the subject, first, of a monographic volume [2] containing various essays dedicated to aspects of his brilliant sacred and profane production, both on canvas and in frescoes, and, subsequently, of an exhibition [3] organized by the Uffizi in his native town.
Luigi Lanzi was an Italian art historian and archaeologist. When he died he was buried in the church of the Santa Croce at Florence by the side of Michelangelo.
The Uffizi Gallery is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of the largest and best known in the world and holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance.
Martinelli started his apprenticeship in the studio of Jacopo Ligozzi in Florence and stayed there until 1625. Little is known about his early days as an artist. It however seems he was relatively successful, considering that the Commander of the Order of Malta and late patron of Caravaggio, Fra Francesco Dell'Antella, commissioned him in 1622 a number of works (now lost) for the church of San Leonardo in Grosseto.
Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627) was an Italian painter, illustrator, designer, and miniaturist. His art can be categorized as late-Renaissance and Mannerist styles.
Michelangelo Merisida Caravaggio was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily from the early 1590s to 1610. His paintings combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.
Grosseto is a city and comune in the central Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of the Province of Grosseto. The city lies 14 kilometres from the Tyrrhenian Sea, in the Maremma, at the centre of an alluvial plain on the Ombrone river.
Though there is no documented trace of the artist during the following ten years, he most likely sojourned in Rome, beginning a long and profitable period of study. There, he probably came into contact with the paintings of Caravaggio and the caraveggesque movement. This thesis is confirmed by the style Martinelli adopted in the altarpiece with the Miracle of the Mule today in the church of San Francesco at Pescia, Pistoia. Created in 1632, the painting demonstrates a profound adhesion to the Caravaggesque lesson in terms of naturalistic mastery and use of light.
Rome is the capital city and a special comune of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region. With 2,872,800 residents in 1,285 km2 (496.1 sq mi), it is also the country's most populated comune. It is the fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4,355,725 residents, thus making it the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber. The Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city: for this reason Rome has been often defined as capital of two states.
Pescia is an Italian city in the province of Pistoia, Tuscany, central Italy.
Pistoia is a city and comune in the Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of a province of the same name, located about 30 kilometres (19 mi) west and north of Florence and is crossed by the Ombrone Pistoiese, a tributary of the River Arno. It is a typical Italian medieval city, and it attracts many tourists, especially in the summer. The city is famous throughout Europe for its plant nurseries.
During all these years, Martinelli also painted allegories characterized by the prevailing influence of Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi as well as the French Vouet and Valentin. The faces of the protagonists in the paintings of those years are rendered with exceptional clarity, of Caravaggesque derivation, and illuminated by extraordinarily clear, cold colour tones.
Orazio Lomi Gentileschi (1563–1639) was an Italian painter. Born in Tuscany, he began his career in Rome, painting in a Mannerist style, much of his work consisting of painting the figures within the decorative schemes of other artists. After 1600, he came under the influence of the more naturalistic style of Caravaggio. He received important commissions in Fabriano and Genoa before moving to Paris to the court of Marie de Medici. He spent the last part of his life at the court of Charles I of England. He was the father of the painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
Artemisia Gentileschi or Artemisia Lomi was an Italian Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio. In an era when female painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence and had international clientele.
Valentin de Boulogne, sometimes referred to as Le Valentin, was a French painter in the tenebrist style.
In 1636, Martinelli enrolled the Accademia del Disegno in Florence. Partly due to the influence of the works of Francesco Furini and Cesare Dandini, he then began to paint more complex allegories and to darken the range of colour tones. Although devoid of any chronological reference, the paintings made in this stylistic phase clearly distinct themselves from the ones created in the earlier periods.
Francesco Furini was an Italian Baroque painter of Florence, noted for his sensual sfumato style in paintings of both secular and religious subjects.
Cesare Dandini was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in his native city of Florence.
By 1638, Martinelli completed a serie of frescoes for the Certosa del Galluzzo, near Florence.
The artist died in 1659, leaving a significant work that deserves far more commend than it received.
Works
Giovanni Martinelli was an assiduous adept of the allegorical representation. In perfect harmony with the climate of fervent philosophical and moral debate practised by the local Academies, he owned a remarkable skill in rendering a captious symbolism in his figures. His allegorical works are of rare elegance and refined formal nobility, having little to envy to the other representatives of the Florentine Seicento, such as Francesco Furini, Cesare Dandini and Lorenzo Lippi.
The artist concentrated on rendering the elegance and beauty of the female figure. Most women protagonists in his paintings are illustrated with long and slender hands, slightly parted vermillion lips and the hair held in place by a ribbon, such as in the series of four Allegories dedicated to the Arts of the Quadrivium executed for the Rospigliosi family.
Martinelli also dedicated a major part of his work to the painting of religious subjects and biblical stories, charging them with strong moral connotations. Among these, the extraordinary Feast of Balthasar and the Ecce Homo in the Uffizi or the Judgement of Solomon in the National Art Gallery in Karlsruhe.
The artist's outstanding rendering of objects, regardless of the subject, reflects his interest for nature.
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