Aureliano Milani
Born Bologna, 1675; died Bologna, 1749.
Italian painter, draughtsman and engraver. He was distantly related to the Carracci family and zealous to revive their style for his generation of Bolognese artists. As a young artist, trained briefly by his uncle Giulio Cesare Milani and then by Lorenzo Pasinelli and Cesare Gennari (1637–88), he undertook a long and diligent study of the celebrated fresco cycles by the Carracci in the Palazzo Magnani and the Palazzo Fava in Bologna. He was given free access to the Fava palace, and financial assistance, by Count Alessandro Fava. Milani also made copies, in both drawing and painting, of major pictures by the Carracci in Bologna and emulated the vigorous rhythmic articulation of musculature and contour that they used to convey the powerful energy of the male figure in movement.
Initially Milani’s reputation was established in Bologna with altarpieces such as the Martyrdom of St Stephen (c. 1715; destr., see Roli, 1977, fig.) for the important church of S Maria della Purificazione, and the altarpiece of St Jerome, commissioned by the Ghislieri family, for the church of S Maria della Vita (in situ). His Resurrection (Bologna, Pal. Arcivescovile) of this period is an impressive paraphrase of Annibale Carracci’s Resurrection (Paris, Louvre); it has a plastic vigour and weight equalled only in the works of Giuseppe Maria Crespi among Milani’s Bolognese contemporaries. At this time Zanotti noted (p. 162) two impressive history paintings (untraced) that Milani had done for Francesco Farnese, Duke of Parma, and also wrote of a large drawing, a Christ Carrying the Cross (Paris, Louvre) with many figures, that the artist had given to Senator Paolo Magnani. Milani later rendered this composition in an engraving of exceptional size .
During these years in Bologna, Milani became responsible for a large family, of nine children. Assistance of various kinds was given by the influential General Ferdinando Marsigli, who attempted to ensure a favourable reception for Milani in Rome; he advised him to send a large drawing, the Fall of Simon Magus (untraced), to the Bolognese pope, Clement XI, and equipped him with a letter of introduction to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Fabrizio Paolucci. Milani settled in Rome in 1718, and Paolucci awarded him his first Roman commission, a fresco of the Martyrdom of St Pancras (Albano Cathedral), and in 1722 gave him a commission for six altarpieces for his titular church of SS Giovanni e Paolo. Milani remained one of the more active painters in Rome, painting altarpieces and frescoes, among them a Beheading of St John the Baptist (1732) in the church of S Bartolomeo dei Bergamaschi and frescoes (1732) in the apse and triumphal arch of S Maria Maddalena. His most impressive Roman work was the fresco cycle of scenes from the Labours of Hercules (1732–3) in the vault of the Galleria degli Specchi in the Palazzo Doria-Pamphili. In these works, where powerful and muscular nudes enrich a sumptuous quadratura setting, Milani revived the energy of Annibale Carracci’s decoration of the Galleria Farnese in Rome. His return to the style of the Carracci is also evident in his drawings, which were highly praised by both Zanotti and Crespi.
As a kind of antidote to his official commissions, Milani painted genre scenes, also inspired by the work of the Carracci. For Paolo Magnani, by this time Bolognese ambassador to Rome, he painted The Mission (Merano, Molinari Prodelli priv. col., see Roli, 1977, fig.) and its pendant, Market Scene in a Roman Square (Pesaro, Mus. Civ.); in these works he unexpectedly revealed an intriguing fancy for the picturesque character of contemporary Italian life and a surprisingly fine ability in landscape painting.
Dwight C. Miller. "Milani, Aureliano." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T058017 (accessed April 11, 2012).
