Polidoro da Caravaggio

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Portrait of Polidoro in Vasari's Vite de 'più eccellenti pittori ... (1568)

Polidoro da Caravaggio (actually Polidoro Caldara ; * around 1492 in Caravaggio , † 1543 in Messina ) was an Italian mannerist painter in Rome , Naples and Sicily .

Life

Zeus and Ganymede

Rome

According to the painter and biographer Giorgio Vasari , Polidoro came to Rome at the age of eighteen, where he worked as a mason's assistant building the loggias in the Vatican . A student body with Raffael is unlikely; rather, he joined the workshop of Giulio and Giovanni da Udine , which had been founded shortly before or after Raphael's death to finish the paintings in the loggias. He received his first artistic recognition when he and the antique draftsman Maturino da Firenze (1490–1528) provided numerous building facades with monochrome sgraffito . In terms of content, Polidoro mostly resorted to events from Roman history and stories from ancient mythology.

The Roman clients were particularly impressed by his knowledge of antiquity and the new, for his contemporaries completely unfamiliar Chiaroscuro in his creations. The artist also broke new ground by giving landscape painting its own weight. An example is the fresco “Scenes from the life of Saint Catherine and Saint Magdalena” in the Roman church of San Silvestro al Quirinale , in which the tiny biblical figures are probably only used as accessories for an ideal landscape for the first time in Italian art history . The Sacco di Roma (1527) and a plague epidemic (1528), which also fell victim to his artist colleague Maturino, prompted the artist to leave Rome for Naples . There he continued his work as a facade painter and painted several panels , including a "Entombment" (around 1527).

Messina

Christ and the Unbelieving Thomas , ca. 1531–35, Courtauld Institute of Art , London

Shortly after 1530 he went to Messina, where his famous "Ascent to Calvary" (1530/34) was written on behalf of the Spanish consul Pietro Ansalone for the chapel of the Catalan Brotherhood. In 1535, the city of Messina commissioned the artist to paint a wooden triumphal gate that Emperor Charles V was to celebrate after his victory in Tunisia . This is the last dated news of his work. No other paintings are known from this period either, since the earthquake of 1783 and the great earthquake of Messina in 1908 fell victim to almost all buildings and their art.

Polidoro da Caravaggio died a violent death in 1543. Some biographers name his student Tonno Calabrese as the perpetrator, who is said to have murdered him shortly before he left for Rome in order to get his money, and then he is said to have laid the body in front of the door of Polidoro's lover. Polidoro was buried in the Carmelite cemetery. In addition to Antonio Catalano , Stefano Giordano , Jacopo Vigneri and Mariano Riccio , Deodato Guinaccia was his most important student in Messina.

Works

painting

Drawings (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Polidoro da Caravaggio  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Caravaggio, Polidoro there
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caldara, Polidoro (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian painter
DATE OF BIRTH around 1492
PLACE OF BIRTH Caravaggio
DATE OF DEATH 1543
Place of death Messina