Mattia Preti
Italian, 1613 - 1699
Italian painter and draughtsman. Although he was trained and had his first success as a painter in Rome during the 1630s and 1640s, he is traditionally associated with the Neapolitan school. It was in Naples between 1653 and 1660 that he made his most lasting mark , contributing to the evolution of the exuberant late Baroque style and providing an important source of inspiration to later generations of painters, notably to Francesco Solimena. From 1661 he was based in Malta, where his most substantial undertaking was the decoration of St John’s, Valletta. Preti’s mature style is intensely dramatic and unites a Caravaggesque realism and expressive chiaroscuro with the grandeur and theatricality of Venetian High Renaissance painting.
1. Training and early work, to 1643.
At an early age, probably before 1630, Preti set out to join his brother Gregorio Preti [il Calabrese] (c. 1603–72), a painter who had arrived in Rome from Taverna c. 1628 and is documented at the Accademia di S Luca, Rome, between 1632 and 1671. On the way to Rome, Mattia may have studied briefly in Naples. Caravaggio and Ribera are the two artists whose influence has been observed most often in his early manner (Pascoli; see also Longhi). The suggestions that he was the pupil of Giovanni Lanfranco (Orlandi; Pascoli) or Guercino (de Dominici) are less convincing. In 1633 Preti was listed, with Gregorio, as a painter at the Accademia di S Luca, and in 1636 the brothers were recorded as sharing a room in the parish of S Biagio a Montecitorio, Rome, an indication, perhaps, that Preti was taught mainly by his brother. Only two works in Rome are traditionally attributed to Gregorio, an altarpiece depicting St Anthony in S Rocco and an overdoor fresco on the interior west wall of S Carlo ai Catinari, St Carlo Borromeo Receiving Missionaries (1652), an undistinguished example of an outmoded early Baroque classicism. Some of Gregorio’s paintings, however, are still mistaken for Mattia’s early works. It is also possible that the brothers collaborated on such works as the Caravaggesque Concert (Lugano, Col. Thyssen-Bornemisza) and the Miracle of St John Chrysostom (Cincinnati, OH, A. Mus.).
Documents and dated works from this early Roman period are scarce. Preti was not attached to the studio of an older master nor to a particular patron, though according to de Dominici he enjoyed the support of Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi (later Pope Clement IX) and of Olimpia Aldobrandini, Princess of Rossano. His earliest works, for example two other works entitled Concert (Alba, Pal. Com.; St Petersburg, Hermitage) and a Draughtsplayers (Oxford, Ashmolean), probably dating from the early 1630s, were inspired by Caravaggio and by the tavern scenes of the latter’s close followers Bartolomeo Manfredi and Valentin de Boulogne. Preti continued to paint in this style at least until the end of the decade while also experimenting with a variety of other trends in the Italian Baroque. The Flight from Troy (Rome, Pal. Corsini) and an altarpiece of the Baptism of St Augustine (L’Aquila, Mus. N. Abruzzo) reveal his interest in Simon Vouet’s scenes from the Life of St Francis (1624; Rome, S Lorenzo in Lucina). Some works from the late 1630s, such as the Denial of St Peter (Rome, Pal. Corsini), emulate the dramatic styles of Lanfranco and Guercino, while others, for instance Moses on Mt Sinai (Montpellier, Mus. Fabre), evoke the neo-Venetian styles of Nicolas Poussin and Andrea Sacchi. His altarpiece of St Andrew (1642; Lucerne, Hofkirche) represents an exceptional attempt to come to terms with the classicizing current in Roman Baroque painting. In 1641, perhaps at the instigation of Aldobrandini, he was nominated a Knight of Malta by Urban VIII.
2. Travels and work in Rome, 1643–53.
Preti’s residence in Rome is documented in 1643 (an unexecuted commission for St Peter’s) and in 1646–51 (parish register of S Andrea delle Fratte); he may have travelled between 1644 and 1646, though probably not as extensively as de Dominici claimed. His paintings of the mid-1640s, for example the Feast of Solomon and Sheba (Carpi, Mus. Civ.) and the Return of the Prodigal Son (Le Mans, Mus. Tessé), seem to reveal first-hand experience of Venice, reflecting the grand manner of Paolo Veronese and Titian; the grandiose Rescue of Sofronia and Olindo (Genoa, Pal. Rosso) is probably slightly later.
In the autumn of 1649 Preti painted a two-sided processional banner for the Confraternità del SS Sacramento in S Martino al Cimino, near Viterbo (in situ), with St Martin and the Beggar and the coat of arms of Olimpia Maidalchini (sister-in-law of Innocent X) on the front and, on the reverse, the Salvator mundi. The latter establishes him as one of the most distinctive and evocative interpreters of Counter-Reformation spirituality, his eclectic origins reconciled into a highly personal style in which Venetian Renaissance grandeur was transformed by the immediacy of Caravaggesque realism and the emotional rhetoric of Lanfranco and Guercino.
In 1650 Preti won from Cardinal Francesco Peretti-Montalto the prestigious commission to fresco three scenes from the Martyrdom of St Andrew in the apse of S Andrea della Valle, Rome (completed 1651; in situ), a church already celebrated for Lanfranco’s Baroque fresco in the dome (1625–8) and Domenichino’s pendentives and scenes from the Life of St Andrew on the vault of the choir (1624–8). Preti’s Theatine patrons expressed complete satisfaction with his work, but his compromise between classicist and realist Baroque styles was generally considered to be inferior to the renowned masterpieces of Lanfranco and Domenichino. The controversy over this may have encouraged Preti to seek work outside Rome. His last public commission there was the overdoor fresco of St Carlo Borromeo Distributing Alms (1652) at S Carlo ai Catinari, which is paired with his brother’s. Probably in 1651 or 1652 he went to Modena to paint frescoes (untraced) in the reliquary chapel in the cathedral and also to fresco the pendentives and cupola of S Biagio with the Evangelists and Paradise (in situ). Early in 1653 he left Rome for Naples.
3. Naples, 1653–60.
Perhaps Preti moved to Naples hoping to replace Jusepe de Ribera, who had died in 1652, in his pre-eminent position among local painters. If he did have such ambitions, according to de Dominici the antagonism of Luca Giordano eventually dissuaded him. Nonetheless he received many prestigious commissions during his seven years in Naples, the earliest known of which is an altarpiece, formerly in S Domenico Soriano, depicting St Nicholas of Bari (1653; Naples, Capodimonte).
By the mid-1650s Preti’s patrons included such outstanding collectors as Gaspar Roomer and Diomede Carafa, Duca di Maddaloni. For Roomer’s business colleague, Ferdinand van den Einden, he painted three martyrdoms in a realistic style influenced by Ribera: the Crucifixion of St Peter (U. Birmingham, Barber Inst.), the Beheading of St Paul (Houston, TX, Mus. F.A.) and the Martyrdom of St Bartholomew (Manchester, NH, Currier Gal. A.). The Feast of Herod (c. 1653–6; Toledo, OH, Mus. A.), one of many banquet scenes, unites his expressive chiaroscuro with a Venetian opulence and architectural setting. This picture too may have been painted for van den Einden, who inherited Rubens’s influential Feast of Herod (Edinburgh, N.G.) from Roomer. In 1656 he was commissioned by the Electors of Naples to paint frescoes (mainly untraced) on each of the seven city gates to commemorate the ending of the plague. Two surviving bozzetti (Naples, Capodimonte) show the energy and colours of these dramatic compositions.
In 1657 Preti agreed to supervise the construction, carving and gilding of new ceilings for the nave and transept of S Pietro a Maiella, Naples, and to provide ten canvases by his own hand, showing five scenes from the Life of St Peter Celestine and five from the Life of St Catherine of Alexandria. These, completed by 1659, were acclaimed by Giordano as ‘the school for studious youth’ (de Dominici). Inspired by the brilliant colour of Veronese and by the unconstrained draughtsmanship of Lanfranco, they are characterized by sweeping painterly effects.
Soon after his arrival in Naples Preti had attracted the patronage of his own order, the Knights of Malta; he sent two paintings, one of St George (before 1657) and the other of St Francis Xavier (1658; both in situ), to the conventual church of St John in Valletta. In 1659 he went to Valletta to execute a large altarpiece in S Caterina, the Martyrdom of St Catherine (in situ), and to request an elevation in his rank. The latter required papal dispensation from Alexander VII, to obtain which he returned to Rome at the end of 1660. In Rome he was engaged by Prince Camillo Pamphili to decorate the ceiling of the Stanza dell’Aria in the Palazzo Pamphili in Valmontone, replacing a fresco by Pier Francesco Mola. This lively Allegory of Air (in situ) translates into fresco the decorative late Baroque style that he had developed in his Neapolitan canvases.
4. Malta, 1661–99.
In 1661, Preti settled in Malta, where he was duly elevated to the rank of Knight of Grace and started work on the execution of previously submitted designs for the renovation of the interior of St John, Valletta. This immense undertaking, which consisted of decorating the apse, vault, side arches of the nave and interior west wall with paintings of the Life of St John the Baptist, various allegorical subjects and saints and heroes of the Order, was completed in 1666. He found that, if soaked in linseed oil, the honey-coloured stone of the church would take oil pigments, so the vast project proceeded faster than fresco would have allowed. By 1665, however, an exhausted Preti wrote to the Sicilian collector Antonio Ruffo that ‘no painter has ever had a more difficult labour than the vault of St John’s (see Ruffo, 1914). Preti’s letters also contain bitter complaints over his meagre compensation from the Knights who did, however, bestow their highest honour upon him in November 1662, promoting his rank to Knight of Justice. Many drawings, mainly figure studies (much praised by de Dominici), survive for this project, including studies for St John the Baptist (London, BM; Vienna, Albertina) and Zaccharias (Paris, Louvre).
The following year Nicholas Cotoner was elected Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. Under Cotoner’s sponsorship, Preti became the executant of first resort for church commissions in Malta; this pattern held true throughout his life. One of his major altarpieces of the later 1660s was the Conversion of St Paul (1667; Valletta, St John, Chapel of France), a re-affirmation of his Roman Baroque style in its conservative composition and more restrained colour and brushwork that indicates the direction of his future work. By the end of the 1660s his period of stylistic experiment was over.
Malta offered Preti prestige, security and constant occupation; his association with the Knights also resulted in a dramatic expansion of his circle of patrons. He continued to dispatch paintings to collectors in Naples but in addition received commissions from all over Europe, especially from Spain and Sicily. His best works of the early 1670s are two altarpieces for Siena, the Canonization of St Catherine (1672–3; Siena, S Domenico), commissioned by a Maltese Knight of the Piccolomini family, and the Preaching of St Bernardino (1674; Siena Cathedral). They show the first signs of the muted palette characteristic of his late style (deplored by de Dominici) and first expressed fully in his cycle of seven paintings for the Sarria church in Floriana, Malta (1677–8; in situ), including an Immaculate Conception and portraits of four saints. In these he modelled his figures using a middle-valued tone over a darkish underpainting and restricted his colour range, principally to a golden tan (with some pink for flesh) and an acid red, the sole survivor of the brilliant colourism of his earlier work.
Preti remained extraordinarily prolific throughout the 1680s. Among his many church commissions are three scenes from The Passion (1683) for an ornamented ceiling, possibly designed by him, in the Oratory of the Decollation, St John’s, Valletta. During this decade he also created a memorial to himself in his birthplace, Taverna, by transforming the churches of S Barbara and S Domenico into veritable galleries of his works (in situ). His last work on Malta was in the cathedral of St Paul, for which he painted an altarpiece (1682) and, with extensive studio assistance, seven large paintings representing episodes of St Paul’s visit to Malta (1688–9; in situ). In 1689 he frescoed St Paul Shipwrecked (in situ) on the vault; his last documented work is the repair to this fresco necessitated by the earthquake of 1693.
5. Posthumous reputation.
The highpoint of Preti’s critical fortunes was undoubtedly the publication of Bernardo de Dominici’s Vite (1742–5), in which the author championed Preti against Giordano and saw the outcome of their rivalry resolved in the glorious ascent of Francesco Solimena, who derived from Preti’s works ‘his beautiful style with its perfect chiaroscuro’. Numerous inventories of 17th- and early 18th-century collections include works by ‘il Cavalier Calabrese’, testifying that his fame had quickly extended beyond Rome, Naples and Malta. His reputation declined in the late 18th century almost to the point of invisibility in the 19th; since World War II, however, he has regained recognition as a creative and individual master of the first rank.
John T. Spike. "Preti, Mattia." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T069523 (accessed April 11, 2012).
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