Skip to main content
Pellegrino Tibaldi
Pellegrino Tibaldi
Pellegrino Tibaldi

Pellegrino Tibaldi

Italian, 1527 - 1596
BiographyBorn 1527, in Puria; died 27 May 1596, in Milan.
Painter, fresco artist, draughtsman. Religious subjects, mythological subjects, portraits, architectural views.
Bolognese School.

Pellegrino Tibaldi was a pupil of Bagnacavallo. He came to Rome in 1547 and as a very young artist began to copy some of the city's most important monuments. The same year he worked on the frescoes at the Castel San Angelo under the direction of Perin del Vaga, When after whose death Tibaldi was brought in to assist on two projects left unfinished: the ceiling of the Dupré chapel at S Luigi dei Franchesi and the decoration of the Della Rovere chapel at Trinità dei Monte. At the first of these churches he collaborated with Jacopino del Conte who had little influence on his style; on the other hand, his contact with Daniele da Volterra at the second church was to have a decisive impact on the development of his style. The cartoons for the Della Rovere chapel and the Deposition painted for the Orsini chapel at the same church - considered to be Daniele's greatest work - had a profound influence on Tibaldi. Nor is it any coincidence that many of Tibaldi's drawings were first attributed to Daniele da Volterra: they show the same isolated, monumental figures executed with great finesse of detail and a sense of sculptural volume that directly echoes the style of Michelangelo. In Rome Cardinal Poggi employed Tibaldi on numerous projects, notably the frescoes of the Vigna near the Porta del Popolo and, from 1550, the completion of his palace in Bologna, now the Palazzo dell'Instituto, which is considered to be Tibaldi's greatest architectural achievement. He also undertook the decoration of this building.

From 1558 to 1561 he lived in Ancona, working at the church of S Agostino where he painted the Baptism of Christ Surrounded by Saints (now in S Francesco alle Scale), and the series of the Triumph of Justice at the Loggia dei Mercanti (this work was destroyed during the bombardments of 1943-1944). In 1586 Tibaldi was summoned to Spain by Philip II. He worked in Valladolid around 1587 and at the Escorial near Madrid where he executed the library ceiling, considered one of his finest works. He returned to Milan a wealthy man.

Tibaldi was an artist admired by the Carraccis. Mariette writes of him: 'This talented man, while seeking to imitate Michelangelo, had the ability to temper his style, bringing to it the suppleness and grace of the Lombardy School'. While it is true that through the intermediary of Daniele da Volterra, Tibaldi was indeed greatly influenced by Michelangelo, some of his work also displays a strongly Raphaelesque character. Examples include the Baptism of Christ at Ancona in which the figure of St Paul is almost a direct 'quotation' from Raphael's St Cecilia in Bologna.

"TIBALDI, Pellegrino." In Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/benezit/B00182733 (accessed April 16, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual