The Palazzo Sampieri frescoes are a set of paintings by Annibale, Agostino and Ludovico Carracci in the Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna. They form the last surviving collection of works by the three artists.
The Palazzo Sampieri frescoes are a set of paintings by Annibale, Agostino and Ludovico Carracci in the Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna. They form the last surviving collection of works by the three artists.
The scheme was commissioned by Astorre Sampieri, young abbot of Santa Lucia di Roffeno, member of a powerful family which had been promoted to senatorial rank in 1590. [1] He had arrived back in the city shortly before commissioning the work from the three artists, already noted for their Life of Aeneas and Lives of Jason and Medea frescoes at the Palazzo Fava and their Scenes from the Foundation of Rome frescoes at the Palazzo Magnani, [1] both in Bologna. Those schemes were all friezes, but at the Palazzo Sampieri they planned three large ceiling scenes and three large scenes over fireplaces in each room. [1] The reasons for this choice are unknown - Astore Sampieri may have wanted something different from the norm or the low rooms may simply not have lent themselves to friezes. [1]
None of the three artists had previous experience of the "sottinsù" (upside-down) technique the scheme would require, but Annibale and Agostino had frequently seen and admired examples of it in palazzi and churches in Venice by artists such as Veronese and Tintoretto, artists personally known to Agostino. They also drew heavily on Pellegrino Tibaldi's mid 16th-century frescoes at Palazzo Poggi in Bologna, rare if not unique examples of "sottinsù", [2] with his Dance of the Genii in a small room next to his better known Life of Ulysses cycle proving the Carraci's main reference point. [2]
The Palazzo Sampieri frescoes are framed by ornate stucco cornices by the sculptor Gabriele Fiorini, a faithful collaborator who had already worked with the Carracci on other projects, particularly at the Palazzo Magnani. As well as the frescoes, the three painters produced three large over-door canvases, all showing Christ meeting women in the Gospels and all now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan - Christ and the Samaritan Woman by Annibale, Christ and the Canaanite Woman by Ludovico and Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery by Agostino. [3]
No sources or documents directly date the frescoes, though a 1595 print of Annibale's Christ and the Samaritan Woman by Francesco Brizio or a very young Guido Reni (British Museum) provides a terminus ante quem. [4] In an early 20th century study the art historian Hans Tietze placed the completion of the whole decorative scheme to 1593-1594, just before the print, a conclusion backed in almost all later studies. [3] This makes it the last surviving ceiling scheme on which the three artists collaborated, [3] with Annibale moving to Rome just afterwards and staying there until his death, Agostino joining him just afterwards before moving to Parma, where he died, and Ludovico staying in Bologna and becoming head of its artistic milieu.
At the bottom is the Latin inscription "GLORIA PERPETUUM LUCET MANSURA PER ÆVUM", referring to the perpetual memory guaranteed by glory and thus to the immortality Hercules earned by his heroic deeds, which gained him entry to Olympus from Jupiter. [1] It is taken almost word-for-word from the Culex, an epyllion in the Appendix Vergiliana. [5]
In 1631 Guercino was summoned to the Palazzo Sampieri to paint the ceilings of its last two rooms with more scenes from the life of Hercules, continuing the Carracci brothers' iconographic scheme [5] with scenes of Hercules fighting Antaeus and Hercules strangling serpents as a baby. The latter scene was destroyed in 1876 during a failed attempt to remove it from the ceiling. Like the Carracci scenes, the works were accompanied by Latin summaries, SIC PEREAT QUISQUIS TERRA GENITRICE SUPERBIT for the Antaeus scene [5] and ITER AD SUPEROS GLORIA PANDET for the lost baby scene. [5]
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.
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.
Domenico Zampieri, known by the diminutive Domenichino after his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese School of painters.
Giovanni Lanfranco was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.
An "overdoor" is a painting, bas-relief or decorative panel, generally in a horizontal format, that is set, typically within ornamental mouldings, over a door, or was originally intended for this purpose.
The Loves of the Gods is a monumental fresco cycle, completed by the Bolognese artist Annibale Carracci and his studio, in the Farnese Gallery which is located in the west wing of the Palazzo Farnese, now the French Embassy, in Rome. The frescoes were greatly admired at the time, and were later considered to reflect a significant change in painting style away from sixteenth century Mannerism in anticipation of the development of Baroque and Classicism in Rome during the seventeenth century.
Domenico Maria Canuti was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Bologna and Rome. He was a major painter of fresco decorations. His ceiling decorations showed a mix of Bolognese and Roman influences.
The Rape of Proserpina, more accurately translated as the Abduction of Proserpina, is a large Baroque marble group sculpture by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, executed between 1621 and 1622, when Bernini's career was in its early stage. The group, finished when Bernini was just 23 years old, depicts the abduction of Proserpina, who is seized and taken to the underworld by the god Pluto. It features Pluto holding Proserpina aloft, and a Cerberus to symbolize the border into the underworld that Pluto carries Proserpina into.
Francesco Brizio (1574–1623) was an Italian painter and engraver of the Bolognese School, active in the early-Baroque.
Palazzo Magnani is a Renaissance palace located on Via Zamboni number 20 in central Bologna, region of Emilia Romagna, Italy, built by the Magnani noble family with the same name.
Fishing is a painting by Italian artist Annibale Carracci, painted before 1595 and given to Louis XIV by Prince Camillo Pamphili in 1665. It is currently held and exhibited at the Louvre in Paris.
Hunting is a painting by Italian artist Annibale Carracci, painted before 1595 and given to Louis XIV by Prince Camillo Pamphili in 1665. It is currently held and exhibited at the Louvre in Paris.
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.
The Palazzo Sampieri Talon is a palace located on Strada Maggiore in Bologna, region of Emilia Romagna, Italy.
Christ and the Samaritan Woman or The Woman at the Well is a 1593-1594 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, painted as part of the same scheme as the Palazzo Sampieri frescoes. Several years later he also produced a much smaller autograph copy with variations, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
An Allegory of Truth and Time is a 1584–85 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, now on display in Hampton Court as part of the Royal Collection.
Self-Portrait is a 1593 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, now in the Galleria Nazionale di Parma. It is dated 17 April 1593 on the top left of the canvas.
Crucifixion with Saints or Crucifixion with Mourners and Saints Bernardino of Siena, Francis of Assisi and Petronius is a 1583 oil on canvas, now in the church of Santa Maria della Carità in Bologna. The work was originally sited in the Macchiavelli chapel in San Nicolò di San Felice, Bologna, next to Santa Maria della Carità, which was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. It was then temporarily moved to the Soprintendenza di Bologna and finally to its current home.
Entombment of Christ is a c.1595 oil on copper painting by Annibale Carracci, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art