Pietro da Cortona

Variant namesauktoriserad namnform: Pietro da Cortona namnvariant: Pietro Berrettini da Cortona namnvariant: Pietro Berrettini namnvariant: Pierre de Cortone

DatesBiographical dates: 1669 dead: dead 1669-05-16 born: born före 1597-11-27

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BiographyBiography: Pietro da Cortona, painter and architect, was one of the leading artists of the Roman Baroque. Born in Cortona, he first studied in Florence under the direction of Andrea Commodi, with whom he moved to Rome around 1612. There he trained under the Tuscan painter Baccio Ciarpi. He was influenced by ancient sculpture and the work of Raphael. Among his first important works was a papal commission for the church of Santa Bibiana in Rome. In the same period he painted a series of large canvases for the Sacchetti family, among them the classically composed and richly coloured Rape of the Sabine Women from 1631 (Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome). The Barberini employed Cortona extensively as both a painter and an architect. The major commission given to him during the papacy of Urban VIII was the highly innovative Allegory of Divine Providence on the vault of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, executed between 1633 and 1639. After this experience Cortona undertook a series of fresco ceilings, beginning with work in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence for the Grand Duke Ferdinand II, which was started in 1637 and not completed until 1647. Between 1651 and 1654 he executed the scenes from Virgil’s Aeneid in the Palazzo Pamphilj. Cortona’s first architectural commission was for the Sacchetti, for whom he designed the villa in Castel Fusano (1625–29). In 1634 he was elected principe of the Accademia di San Luca and proposed the reconstruction of the academy church of SS. Luca and Martina (1635– 47). The most distinctive feature of this church is the interplay of light and shadow through convex and concave forms. Another theme in Cortona’s architecture is the theatre-like facades, as in the papal commission from Alexander VII for Santa Maria della Pace (1656–59).

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