Domenichino (1581-1641)
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Domenico Zampieri (or Domenichino), was a prominent high Baroque Italian painter of the Bolognese School, or Carracci School, of painters. He was born at Bologna, son of a shoemaker, and there was initially apprenticed under Denis Calvart. Soon he left to work in the Accademia degli Incamminati of the Carracci brothers. Leaving Bologna for Rome (1601), he became one of the most talented apprentices to emerge from Annibale Carracci’s supervision, working alongside a senior contemporary like Albani and Guido Reni, as well as lifetime rivals such as Lanfranco.
Because of his stature, he was nicknamed "little Domenico". The panel depicting The Maiden and the Unicorn (1604-5) in Annibale’s Gallery series titled The Loves of the Gods is attributed to Domenichino. Also in the Palazzo Farnese he painted three mythologic landscapes in the Loggia del Giardino. With the support of Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agguchi, the maggiordomo to Cardinal Aldobrandini and later Gregory XV, and Giovanni’s brother Cardinal Girolamo Agguchi, Domenichino obtained commission for the Cappella dei Santissimi Fondatori in the medieval basilica of the Abbey of Grottaferrata (1608-10) a few miles outside Rome, and where the titular abbot was Odoardo Farnese. He also was commissioned for frescoes in church of Sant’Onofrio. Albani saw that he participated in decorating the Palazzo Mattei (1606-07) and Villa Odescalchi at Bassano di Sutri (today Bassano Romano). Reni worked with him on frescoes in the Oratorio di Sant’Andrea and at San Gregorio Magno. Working on The Scourging of St. Andrew (a fresco in the church of San Gregorio Magno), the artist was rumored to work himself into a passion, using threatening words and actions, and that Annibale Carracci, surprising him, exclaimed with joy, "To-day, my dear Domenichino, thou art teaching me."
After the passing of Annibale in 1609, the Roman art scene was dominanted the master’s pupils. Domenichino’s next commissions were scenes al fresco of the life of St. Cecilia for the Polet Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi (1613-1614). Domenichino painted in fresco in San Silvestro al Quirinale, San Carlo ai Catinari, Santa Maria in Trastevere, Sant’Andrea della Valle and Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, as well as in the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati.
Both Annibale and Domenichino were among the few landscape artists of the early Roman baroque, and would influence Claude Lorrain in the next.
He was considered unsociable by many, and ultimately excited the rivalry of Lanfranco. Shortly after Domenichino had completed for the Oratorian church of San Girolamo della Carità his celebrated for Communion of St. Jerome (1614, Vatican Pinacoteca), Lanfranco circulated copies of Agostino Carracci’s (1591-97) painting of the Ultima Comunione di San Girolamo, alleging, not wholly without merit, plagiarism. Inspection of the two mirrored canvases would suggest that while he closely paraphrases Agostino, the accusation of plagiarism is debatable, since Domenichino’s treatment is sharper, less crowded, and more focused on the beggarly figure of St Jerome.
In 1630, Domenichino moved to Naples, to work on a series of frescoes (never wholly completed) of the life of St. Januarius in the Cappella del Tesoro. The so-called Cabal of Naples formed by the painters Corenzio, Ribera and Caracciolo banded together as to exclude non-Napolitan competition, and criticized and defaced the Bolognese artist’s work. For instance, it is said he often found his previous day’s work was rubbed out. Whether constant anxiety or rumored poison assailed him, he died in Naples in 1641.
Despite his prodigious output, Domenichino had a slow and labored style of painting, garnering him the nickname of Bue ("Ox") among Carracci acolytes. Domenichino, in the tradition of Annibale Carracci, restrained the late-Mannerist and Baroque impulses that were contorting the canvases of contemporaries; and aimed for a more settled peaceful representations.
Among the painters that apprenticed under him or which he influenced were Andrea Camassei (1602-1649), Giovanni Agnolo Canini, Giacomo Castro, Francesco Cozza (1605-82), Giovanni Domenico Cerrini, Francesco Grimaldi, Vincenzo Manenti, Francesco di Maria, Pietro del Po, Antonio Ricci (Barbalunga), Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, Giovanni Battista Salvi, il Sassoferrato (1609-85), Pietro Testa (1611-50), and Giovanni Domenico Cerrini (1609-81) Attributed work
