Bartolommeo Coriolano was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 engraver during the Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 period. His father, Cristoforo Coriolano

Cristoforo Coriolano

Cristoforo Coriolano was a German engraver of the Renaissance.He was born in Nuremberg. He moved to Italy and changed his name from Lederer for that of Coriolano. He engraved on wood...

, and brother, Giovanni Battista Coriolano

Giovanni Battista Coriolano

Giovanni Battista Coriolano was an Italian engraver of the Baroque period.He was almost certainly the son of the German transplant to Italy, the engraver Cristoforo Coriolano. Giovanni Battista was born and died in Bologna. He studied painting under Giovanni Luigi Valesio, but found little work...

 were also woodblock printers, although there is some doubt over the actual relationship between Cristoforo and Bartolommeo Coriolano. Coriolano had a daughter, Teresa Maria Coriolano, who later became a painter and engraver.

Coriolano trained under the painter Guido Reni

Guido Reni

Guido Reni was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style.-Biography:Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de’ Pozzi. As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in that...

 and modeled many of his woodblock prints on the work of his teacher, as was common. Coriolano was a traditional woodblock printer who followed the German style in printing. He was successful and popular, though not an innovator in the technique of woodblock printing. Eventually, he came to the attention of Pope Urban VII

Pope Urban VII

Pope Urban VII , born Giovanni Battista Castagna, was Pope for thirteen days in September 1590. He was of Genoese origin, although born in Rome. He was created Cardinal-Priest of S. Marcello in 1584...

 who granted Coriolano knighthood, as a "Roman count", and a pension. Coriolano's works are the most celebrated of the works produced by the Coriolano family.

Biography

Coriolano was born in Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

 in either 1590 or 1599, the son of Cristoforo Coriolano. He, like his brother Giambattista (born 1595 or 1589) became wood engravers like their father. Originally from Nuremberg, their father had moved to Venice and changed the family name to Lederer. His father died at Venice in 1600. With such a distance between Coriolano's first work, 1627, and the death of his father, the relationship of father and son is questionable. This is compounded by his father's career with Giorgio Vasari

Giorgio Vasari

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, writer, historian, and architect, who is famous today for his biographies of Italian artists, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing.-Biography:...

 in 1568, making his father of a considerable age when Coriolano was born.

He was first instructed by his father at the Academy of the Incamminati, of the Carracci

Accademia degli Incamminati

The Accademia degli Incamminati was one of the first art academies in Italy. It was originally created around 1580 in Bologna as the Accademia dei Desiderosi and was sometimes known as the Accademia dei Carracci after its founders the Carracci cousins , with Annibale heading the institution thanks...

, at Bologna. He afterwards became a pupil of Reni, in whose studio he learned wood-engraving. After the successful woodblock printer Andrea Andreani

Andrea Andreani

Andrea Andreani was an Italian engraver on wood, who was among the first printmakers in Italy to use chiaroscuro, which required multiple colours....

 died, Coriolano took his place. He worked at Bologna from 1630 to 1647, and was fond of developing the designs of Reni and Guercino.

His success at imitating Reni brought him to the attention of Pope Urban VIII

Pope Urban VIII

Pope Urban VIII , born Maffeo Barberini, was pope from 1623 to 1644. He was the last pope to expand the papal territory by force of arms, and was a prominent patron of the arts and reformer of Church missions...

. A set of his prints after Carracci, Reni, and others was dedicated to Urban VIII, and Coriolano provided the pope with a print of the Madonna; the pope granted him a salary and brought Coriolano into the Knighthood of Loreto (with the title Cavaliere di Loreto). During this time, he called himself Romanus Eques, "Roman knight", which refers to his knighthood. Coriolano had a daughter, Theresa Maria Coriolano

Theresa Maria Coriolano

Theresa Maria Coriolano was an Italian engraver of the Baroque period.Coriolano was born in Bologna, the daughter of the engraver Bartolommeo Coriolano, and was instructed in painting by Elisabetta Sirani. She etched a small plate of the Virgin, half-length, with the Infant Jesus.-External links:*...

, who was also an engraver and painter.

Works

Coriolano's artistic works are the most celebrated works by the members of the Coriolano family, and his works date from 1627 to 1647. He, like his brother, was an Italian chiaroscurist

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....

 that would use two blocks for their prints in a German manner. His style was close to the German use of black for outlines and brown for the tints. He usually made use of two blocks for his woodcut

Woodcut

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

s; on one he cut the outline and the dark shadows, like the hatchings of a pen, and on the other block the demi-tinte, or "halftones". Coriolano's prints brought great recognition even though he contributed nothing new to the technique that he used.

Many artists during Coriolano's time relied on aspects of Reni's works, his style or his actual designs, in producing their own work. Coriolano, in particular, would base many of his woodcut designs on Reni's works. An example of this is Coriolano's Salome with the Head of the Baptist (1631). His major works include St Jerome in Meditation Before a Crucifix, Herodias with the Head of the Baptist, and The Virgin, with the Infant Sleeping. Other important works by Coriolano include The Fall of Giants (1638), a four sheet work that is 32 inches by 23 inches, The Four Sibyls, Peace and Abundance (1642), Jupiter Hurling Bolts at the Giants (1647) and The Seven Ages.