Pietro da Cortona facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Pietro da Cortona
Self-Portrait
Born	Pietro Berrettini (1596-11-01)1 November 1596 or 1597 Cortona, Grand Duchy of Tuscany
Died	16 May 1669(1669-05-16) (aged 72) Rome, Papal States
Nationality	Italian
Known for	Painting and architecture
Movement	Baroque

Pietro da Cortona (born Pietro Berrettini; 1 November 1596 or 1597 – 16 May 1669) was a very important Italian artist. He was a painter and an architect during the Baroque period. He worked alongside other famous artists like Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini. Together, they helped create the Roman Baroque style in art and buildings. Pietro da Cortona also designed beautiful interior decorations.

He was born Pietro Berrettini, but people mostly know him by the name of his hometown, Cortona, in Tuscany. He spent most of his working life in Rome and Florence. He is most famous for his amazing painted ceilings, like the one in the main hall of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome. He also did many large painting and decorating projects for the powerful Medici family in Florence. He also worked for the Oratorian fathers at the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome. Besides frescoes, he painted many pictures on canvas. He did not build many buildings, but his architectural designs were very unique and creative.

Biography of Pietro da Cortona

Early Life and Training

Pietro Berrettini was born into a family of builders and craftspeople in Cortona. This town was part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany at the time. He first learned to paint in Florence with a teacher named Andrea Commodi. Around 1612 or 1613, he moved to Rome. There, he joined the studio of Baccio Ciarpi.

In Rome, he helped paint frescoes at the Palazzo Mattei in 1622-1623. He also painted a picture called Adoration of the Shepherds for Cardinal Orsini around 1626. Many important people in Rome supported his work. One story says that his excellent copy of Raphael's Galatea fresco caught the eye of Marcello Sacchetti. Sacchetti was a papal treasurer for Pope Urban VIII.

These connections helped Pietro get a big job early in his career. From 1624 to 1626, he painted frescoes in the church of Santa Bibiana. This church was being renovated by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. In 1626, the Sacchetti family hired Cortona to paint large canvases. These included The Sacrifice of Polyxena and The Triumph of Bacchus. He also painted frescoes at the Villa Sacchetti at Castelfusano with a team, including the young Andrea Sacchi. Through the Sacchetti family, he met Pope Urban VIII and Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Their support gave Cortona many chances to show his skills in painting frescoes and canvases.

The Grand Salon of Palazzo Barberini

Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power

In Cortona's time in Rome, many artists painted fresco cycles. These were often "quadri riportati," which means painted scenes that looked like framed canvases. In 1633, Pope Urban VIII, who was from the Barberini family, asked Cortona to paint a huge fresco on the main salon ceiling of the Palazzo Barberini. Cortona finished this work six years later. Before that, he visited northern Italy. There, he saw amazing perspective paintings by Paolo Veronese and the rich colors used by Titian.

Cortona's enormous fresco, called Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power, was a major turning point in Baroque painting. He used the room's architecture to create an amazing painted illusion. It looked like an open, airy sky where figures floated or seemed to enter the room from above. The detailed painted framework divided the ceiling into five parts. The central part celebrated Pope Urban VIII's rule. It was a bright scene filled with symbolic figures and the Barberini family's emblems.

The way Cortona made the space seem to extend, the grand theme, and his skill truly amazed visitors. His grand, trompe-l'œil (trick the eye) paintings were very popular. They were also early examples of the bright figures and cherubs seen in later rococo art. These works were very different from the darker, more realistic paintings of the Caravaggisti artists. They also differed from the classical compositions by painters like Domenichino and Andrea Sacchi. Cortona's work showed that Baroque painting could be grand, epic, and full of life.

The Golden Age by Pietro da Cortona.

Frescoes in Palazzo Pitti

Pietro da Cortona was well-known by the Tuscan community in Rome. So, it was not a surprise when he visited Florence in 1637. Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany asked him to paint a series of frescoes. These paintings were meant to show Ovid's Four Ages of Man in a small room called the Sala della Stufa in the Palazzo Pitti. The first two frescoes showed the "ages" of gold and silver. In 1641, he was called back to paint the 'Bronze Age' and 'Iron Age' frescoes. It is believed that Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger helped him plan these symbolic designs.

He then started decorating the grand-ducal reception rooms on the first floor of the Palazzo Pitti. These rooms are now part of the Palatine Gallery. In these five "Planetary Rooms," the gods are arranged in a hierarchy based on the Ptolemaic idea of the universe. They include Venus, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter (the Medici Throne room), and Saturn. The plan for the Planetary Rooms was created by Francesco Rondinelli. These very ornate ceilings have frescoes and detailed stucco work. They mainly celebrate the Medici family and their good leadership. Pietro left Florence in 1647 to go back to Rome. His student and helper, Ciro Ferri, finished the cycle of paintings by the 1660s.

Later Works and Architecture

Romulus and Remus Sheltered by Faustulus, c. 1643

For many years, Cortona worked on the ceiling frescoes in the Oratorian Chiesa Nuova (Santa Maria in Vallicella) in Rome. This large project was not finished until 1665. He also painted frescoes in the Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona from 1651 to 1654.

Towards the end of his life, he spent a lot of time on architecture. He also published a book about painting in 1652, using a different name and working with someone else. He turned down invitations to work in both France and Spain.

Discussion on Painting Styles

In 1634, Pietro da Cortona was chosen as the director of the Academy of St Luke. This was a guild for painters in Rome. In 1636, at the Academy, Cortona and Andrea Sacchi had a famous discussion. They debated how many figures (people) should be in a painting.

Sacchi believed that a painting should have only a few figures. He thought it was hard to give each figure a unique role if there were too many. Cortona, however, argued for art that could include many smaller stories within one main idea. He also liked using many human figures for decoration or to show a general concept. The French painter Nicolas Poussin reportedly found this discussion about fixed numbers amusing. Some people see this debate as a long-standing question in art. Is art mainly about ideas and telling a complete story, or is it more about decoration and pleasing the senses? Cortona was the director of the Accademia from 1634 to 1638.

Cortona also helped write a book in Florence with a theologian and Jesuit named Giandomenico Ottonelli. The book was called Trattato della pittura e scultura, uso et abuso loro: composto da un theologo ed da un pittore (Treatise on painting and sculpture, their use and abuse: composed by a theologian and a painter). In later editions, Cortona was given credit as an author.

Pietro da Cortona's Students

Pietro da Cortona taught and worked with many important artists. These students then helped spread his grand style of painting. Some of the artists who worked in his studio included:

Romanelli and Camassei also learned from Domenichino. Giovanni Maria Bottala was one of his helpers on the Barberini Ceiling.

Architectural Designs

Some of Cortona's most important buildings include the church of Santi Luca e Martina (finished in 1664). This church is also the church of the Accademia di San Luca, located in the Roman Forum. While Cortona was the director of the Accademia from 1634 to 1638, he got permission to dig in the church's crypt. This led to finding remains that people thought belonged to Saint Martina. This discovery brought more support for building the church. The church's design is almost a Greek cross, with four similar sections extending from a striking central dome. Much of the lower part of the building is plain, but the upper parts are very decorated. The front of the building has a strong vertical design, made lively by its curved shape. In his will, Cortona, who never married, called this church his "beloved daughter."

He also updated the outside of the old Santa Maria della Pace (1656–1667). He designed the front (called a façade) of Santa Maria in Via Lata (around 1660), which has an unusual loggia (an open gallery).

Another important work for its time was the design and decoration of the Villa Pigneto. This garden palace, or casino, brought together many different features in a new way. It had a garden front with curved arms, highly decorated niches, and fancy tiered staircases around a fountain.

Anatomical Drawings

Before he became famous as an architect, Pietro da Cortona drew detailed pictures of the human body for anatomy. These drawings were not printed until 100 years after he died. The drawings in the book Tabulae anatomicae are thought to have been started around 1618. The figures in these drawings are shown in dramatic and carefully studied poses. This style fits with other Renaissance Baroque artists who drew anatomy. However, no other artist showed this approach as fully as Cortona did in these plates.

Gallery

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  Pietà

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  Virgin and Child with Saints

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  Martyrdom of St Lawrence

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  Ananias restores sight to St Paul

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  Return of Hagar

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  Guardian Angel

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  Venus as Huntress Appears to Aeneas

See also

In Spanish: Pietro da Cortona para niños