Federico Barocci 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...

 Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and printmaker. His original name was Federico Fiori, and he was nicknamed Il Baroccio, which still in northwestern Italian dialects means a two wheel cart drawn by oxen. His work fills an oft-overlooked period of art; while in his day his work was highly esteemed and influential.

Early life and training

He was born at Urbino

Urbino

Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482...

, Duchy of Urbino, and received his earliest apprenticeship with his father, Ambrogio Barocci, a sculptor of some local eminence. He was then apprenticed with the painter Battista Franco in Urbino. He accompanied his uncle, Bartolomeo Genga to Pesaro, then in 1548 to Rome, where he was worked in the pre-eminent studio of the day, that of the Mannerist

Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

 painters, Taddeo

Taddeo Zuccari

Taddeo Zuccari was an Italian painter, one of the most popular members of the Roman mannerist school.-Biography:...

 and Federico Zuccari

Federico Zuccari

Federico Zuccari, also known as Federigo Zuccaro , was an Italian Mannerist painter and architect, active both in Italy and abroad.-Biography:Zuccari was born at Sant'Angelo in Vado, near Urbino ....

.

Mature work in Rome and Urbino

After passing four years at Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, he returned to his native city, where his first work was a St. Margaret executed for the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament. He was invited back to Rome by Pope Pius IV to assist in the decoration of the Vatican

Apostolic Palace

The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, which is located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Sacred Palace, the Papal Palace and the Palace of the Vatican...

 Belvedere Palace at Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, where he painted the Virgin Mary and infant, with several Saints and a ceiling in fresco, representing the Annunciation.

During this second soujourn, while completing the decorations for the Vatican, Barocci fell ill with intestinal complaints and feared he had been poisoned by jealous rivals. Fearing his illness was terminal, he left Rome in 1563; four years later he was said to experience a partial remission after prayers to the Virgin. Barocci for henceforth, often complained of frail health, though he remained productive for nearly four decades more. While he is described by contemporaries as personally somewhat morose and hypochondriacal, his paintings are lively and brilliant. Barocci, while he continued to have major altarpiece commissions from afar, he never returned to Rome, and was mainly patronized in his native city by Francesco Maria II della Rovere

Francesco Maria II della Rovere

Francesco Maria II della Rovere was the last Duke of Urbino.- Biography :Born at Pesaro, Francesco Maria was the son of Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, Count of Montefeltro and Vittoria Farnese, Princess of Parma...

, duke of Urbino. The Ducal Palace can be seen in the background of his paintings, rendered in a forced perspective that seems a holdover from Mannerism.

While Barocci was removed from Rome, the fulcrum of artistic fame and influence, he continued to innovate in his style. At some point he may have seen colored chalk/pastel drawings by Correggio

Antonio da Correggio

Antonio Allegri da Correggio , usually known as Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century...

, but Barocci's remarkable pastel studies are the earliest examples of the technique to survive. In pastels and in oil sketches (another technique he pioneered) Barocci's soft, opalescent renderings evoke the ethereal. Such studies were part of a complex process Barocci used to complete his altarpieces. An organized series of steps leading up to the final product ensured its speed and success in execution. Barocci did innummerable sketches: gestural, compositional, figural studies (using models), lighting studies (using clay models), perspective studies, color studies, nature studies, etc. Today, over 2,000 drawings by him are extant. Every detail of his subsequent cartoons for canvases was worked out in this way. A good example is his famed Madonna del Popolo (Uffizi

Uffizi

The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...

). It is a vortex of color and vitality, made possible by the great variety of people, poses, perspectives, natural details, colors, lighting and atmospheric effects. There are many surviving drawings for the Madonna del Popolo, from initial sketches to color studies of heads, to the final full size cartoon. Despite this painstaking process, Barocci's genius kept the brushstrokes passionate and liberated. More should be written about the singular radiance of the master's painting technique, in which a spiritual light seems to flicker as a jewel across faces, hands, drapery, and sky.

Barocci's embrace of the Counter Reformation would shape his long and fruitful career. By 1566, he joined a lay order of Capuchins

Order of Friars Minor Capuchin

The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...

, an offshoot of Franciscans. He may have been influenced by Saint Philip Neri, whose Oratorians sought to reconnect the spiritual realm with the lives of everyday people. Neri, who was somewhat ambivalent about the accumulating richness of his Santa Maria in Vallicella

Santa Maria in Vallicella

Santa Maria in Vallicella, also called Chiesa Nuova, is a church in Rome, Italy, which today faces onto the main thoroughfare of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele...

, commissioned two completed works from Barocci, the pre-eminent artists of these large pious altarpieces: The Visitation (1583-6) and Presentation of the Virgin (1593–94). Neri is said to have been moved to ecstasy by Barocci's accomplishment in the former painting, which shows the Virgin and Elizabeth greeting each other.

In Urbino, where he painted a Descent from the Cross for the cathedral of San Lorenzo at Perugia

Perugia

Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....

. He again visited Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 during the papacy of Gregory XIII when he painted two admirable pictures for the Chiesa Nuova, representing the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to Elisabeth and the Presentation in the Temple, and for the Chiesa della Minerva, a Last Supper.

Critical assessment and legacy

The artist biographer Giovanni Bellori, the Baroque equivalent of 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:...

, considered Barrocci among the finest painters of his time. Barocci's emotive brushwork was not lost on Peter Paul Rubens when he was in Italy. Rubens is known to have made a sketch of his dramatic Martyrdom of St Vitale, in which the martyr's undulating flesh is the eye of another whirlwind of figures, gestures, and drama. Ruben's The Martyrdom of St Livinus, for instance, seems to owe much to Barocci, from the putto with the pointing palm frond to the presence of dogs in the lower right corner. Among the painters and artists who worked under Barrocci are Antonio Cimatori

Antonio Cimatori

Antonio Cimatori, called Il Visacci, an Italian historical painter, was a native of Urbino. He flourished in the 16th century, and excelled in chiar-oscuro and in pen and ink drawings.-References:...

 (Visacci), Ventura Mazza, Antonio Viviani

Antonio Viviani

Antonio Viviani was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance and early-Baroque. He was also called il Sordo de Urbino , because of his self-absorption while painting frescoes. He was born in Urbino, and there became a follower of Federigo Barocci, whose nephew he is said to have been...

 (il Sordo di Urbino), Giovanni Andrea Urbani, Alessandro Vitali

Alessandro Vitali

Alessandro Vitali was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance and Baroque periods. He was born at Urbino, was a follower of Federico Barocci.-References:...

, and finally Felice and Vincenzo Pellegrini. Barocci also had many who followed or were strongly influenced by his style, including Nicolo Martinelli (il Trometta), Giovanni Battista Lombardelli, Cesare & Basilio Maggeri, Filippo Bellini

Filippo Bellini

Filippo Bellini was an Italian painter from Urbino....

, Giovanni Laurentini

Giovanni Laurentini

Giovanni Laurentini was an Italian painter. He was a pupil of Federigo Barocci. Born in Rimini, he mostly executed large canvases including The Martyrdom of St. John at the Augustines, and St. John and St. Paul for their respective churches in Rimini....

 (Arrigoni), Giorgio Picchi, Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi

Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi

Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi was an Italian painter, who was born and lived in Pesaro. He studied with Federico and Taddeo Zuccari, but was strongly influenced by another artist, Federico Barocci...

, Terenzio d’Urbino (il Rondolino), Giulio Cesare Begni

Giulio Cesare Begni

Giulio Cesare Begni was an Italian painter active in the early-Baroque period, born in Pesaro, but also active in Venice and Udine. He was a pupil of Antonio Cimatori in Urbino.-References:...

, Benedetto Marini, Girolamo Cialdieri

Girolamo Cialdieri

Girolamo Cialdieri was born at Urbino in 1593, and was a scholar of Claudio Ridolfi. He painted several pictures at Rome for the churches. His best work is the 'Martyrdom of St. John,' in San Bartolommeo...

, Giovanni Battista Urbinelli, Alfonso Patanazzi, Gian Ortensio Bertuzzi, Cesare Franchi (il Pollino), Silla Piccinini, Benedetto Bandiera

Benedetto Bandiera

Benedetto Bandiera was an Italian painter of the early-Baroque period. Born in Perugia, where he painted in the style of Federico Barocci. He painted frescoes in the convent adjacent to the Church of San Pietro of Perugia. There are paintings of his in the church and museum of San Francesco in...

, Matteuccio Salvucci, Simeone Ciburri, Pietro Rancanelli, Onofrio Marini, Alessandro Brunelli.

Barocci's swirling composition and the focus on the emotional and spiritual are elements that foreshadow the Baroque of Rubens. But even in Federico's Proto-Baroque Beata Michelina can see the makings of Bernini's High Baroque masterpiece Ecstasy of St Theresa

Ecstasy of St Theresa

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is the central sculptural group in white marble set in an elevated aedicule in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome...

.

Partial anthology of works

Painting	Date	Site	Image link
Martyrdom of St Sebastian	1557	Duomo of Urbino
Madonna di San Simone	1567	Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino Urbino Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482...	http://webpages.ursinus.edu/iverstegen/barocci.htm
Deposition	1567-79	Duomo, Perugia Perugia Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....
Rest on the Flight to Egypt	1570	Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican Vatican Museums The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and...	http://www.wga.hu/html/b/barocci/egypt.html
Nativity	1597	Museo del Prado Museo del Prado The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of... , Madrid Madrid Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
The Vision of Saint Francis		San Francesco, Urbino
Madonna del Popolo	1575-79	Uffizi Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:... , Florence
Entombment	1580-2	Santa Croce, Senigallia Senigallia Senigallia is a comune and port town on Italy's Adriatic coast, 25 km by rail north of Ancona, in the Marche region, province of Ancona....
Martyrdom of San Vitale
Circumcision		Paris
Annuciation	1592-96	Santa Maria degli Angeli, Perugia	http://www.wga.hu/html/b/barocci/annuncia.html
Aeneas' Flight from Troy	1598	Galleria Borghese Galleria Borghese The Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. It is a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens... , Rome	:Image:BarocciAeneas.jpg
St Jerome	1598	Galleria Borghese Galleria Borghese The Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. It is a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens... , Rome Rome Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...	http://www.wga.hu/html/b/barocci/stjerome.html &:de:Bild:Barocci2.jpg
Portrait of Francisco II della Rovere	1572	Uffizi Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:... , Florence Florence Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....	http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/barocci/francesco.jpg
Christ and Mary Magdalen (Noli me tangere)	1590	Gemaldegalerie, Munich Munich Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...	http://www.pinakothek.de/alte-pinakothek/sammlung/kuenstler/kuenstler_inc_en.php?inc=bild&which=7265
Entombment (etching)	1579–1582	Getty Museum, Los Angeles Los Ángeles Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...	http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/oz110.html
Quintilia Fischeri	c. 1600	National Gallery of Art National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC... , Washington, DC	http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?309+0+0
Annunciation (etching)			http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?53241+0+0
St Francis receives the stigmata (drawing)		Accademia Carrara Accademia Carrara The Accademia Carrara is an art gallery and an academy of fine arts in Bergamo, Italy.-History:The origins of the art gallery lie with the Count Giacomo Carrara, a wealthy collector and patron of the arts, who left a generous legacy to the city of Bergamo at the end of the 18th century.After the... , Bergamo Bergamo Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
Madonna with Sts Simon and Jude		Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino Urbino Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482...	http://www.theitalians.com.au/theitalians/Detail.cfm?IRN=161141&ViewID=3
Vocation of Saints Peter and Andrew	1586	Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Belgium	http://193.190.214.109/webopac/List.csp?SearchT1=&Index1=Index24&Database=2&SearchMethod=Find_1&SearchTerm1=Barocci&SearchTerm2=&SearchTerm3=&OpacLanguage=fre&Profile=Default&RequestId=1_96&PageType=RecordListFind&PreviousList=RecordListFind&WebPageNr=1&NumberToRetrieve=10&WebAction=NewSearch&StartValue=1
Madonna & Child with St Joseph & Infant Baptist (Madonna del Gatto)	National Gallery, London National Gallery, London The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...		http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=ng29

External links

• Lisot, Elizabeth A. (2009). Passion, Penance and Mystical Union: Early Modern Catholic Polemics in the Religious Paintings of Federico Barocci, excerpt from Univ. of Texas, Dallas, Ph.D. Dissertation. See also: Elizabeth Lisot, Ph.D.