Artist and gentleman in Baroque Italy
The book by Riccardo Lattuada and Laura Raucci relocates Giacomo Farelli to the artistic horizon of his time, downstream of historically and philologically founded research, focusing on the painter’s remarkable social and professional position.
Niccolò Tornioli is a Sienese painter who was active, during the first half of the 17th century, mainly in the papal city. Sources, but especially a fairly substantial number of documents, Letters, contracts of allotment, will, asset inventory, coeval testimonies or shortly after the death, have made it possible to reconstruct a tormented personality, rich in multiple interests, ranging from painting, of which he experimented with almost all techniques and media, to sculpture, science, and theater.
The present study focuses on his apprenticeship (c.1410-1417) and – in light of a newly rediscovered early Virgin of Humility – his subsequent development as he broke away from his first teachers (1417-1426). The second part of the volume offers a survey of Giovanni di Paolo’s biography and career, with a discussion of some of his dated works.
