Lazzaro Baldi

Italian, 1624 - 1703

BiographyBapt. Pistoia, 24 April 1622; died Rome, 1703.

Italian painter. After training in Pistoia with Francesco Leoncini, he moved to Rome to study with Pietro da Cortona. In 1656, under the latter’s direction, he contributed to the decoration of the Alexander Gallery in the Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome, where he painted scenes of the Creation of Adam and Eve, the Flood and the Annunciation (all in situ). Shortly after 1658 Cardinal Francesco Paolucci commissioned Baldi to paint frescoes of scenes from the Life of St John the Evangelist in the restored tempietto of S Giovanni in Oleo, Rome, works that were deeply influenced by Pietro da Cortona. Around 1660–65 Baldi frescoed a ceiling in the Palazzo Odescalchi, Rome, with Day, Night, Dawn, Dusk and, in the centre, Apollo in the Chariot of the Sun. This rare mythological decoration was lost in 1745, but the compositions are known from Baldi’s surviving drawings (Düsseldorf, Kstmus.; Rome, Gab. N. Stampe) and from engravings made in 1682 by Baldi’s pupil Georg Szymonowicz (1660–1711). These commissions ensured Baldi’s success, and he was much in demand; he painted mainly religious works, among them altarpieces (e.g. Rest on the Flight into Egypt, c. 1665; Pistoia, church of the Madonna dell’Umiltà) and frescoes for churches in Rome (e.g. the Vision of St John on Patmos, c. 1660–65; Rome, S Giovanni Laterano) and in Tuscany and Umbria.

Baldi’s compatriot Giulio Rospigliosi was elected to the papacy in 1667 as Clement IX, and Baldi at once came under his protection. Baldi and his workshop specialized in painting portraits of newly canonized saints and in producing paintings, banners and prints to commemorate the canonizations that took place in the second half of the century. One such commission was for the decorations for the festival of the beatification of Rose of Lima, and in 1671 Antonio Gonzalez, Bishop of Caracas, commissioned Baldi to fresco the Colonna Chapel in S Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, with scenes from the Life of St Rose of Lima (in situ). From 1670 Baldi was a member of the Virtuosi al Pantheon, and in 1679 he became Principe of the Accademia di S Luca, Rome, of which he had been a member since 1652.

In 1681 Baldi decorated a chapel in SS Luca e Martina, Rome, in honour of St Lazarus, whose name he bore. He painted an altarpiece of St Lazarus, designed his own tomb and that of his sister (all in situ) and in the same year published his Breve compendio della vita e morte di S Lazzaro monaco e insigne pittore. There followed paintings of Three Scenes from the Life of St Benedict (1686–8; Rome, S Maria in Campo Marzo), an altarpiece of the Pentecost (1685–90; Spoleto, S Filippo) and the Martyrdom of St Andrew (1686–8; Rome, S Andrea delle Fratte), the latter being one of a cycle of paintings to which Francesco Trevisani also contributed. Here the warm colour and dramatic contrasts of light and shade reveal the influence of Venetian tenebrism. The same intense chiaroscuro and nervous energy can be seen in Baldi’s compositional drawings, often in pen and brown ink and wash, heightened with white, on brown paper, as in the Martyrdom of St Lazarus (Rome, Gab. N. Stampe). His studies of single figures, such as the study for St John the Baptist (Rome, Gab. N. Stampe), reveal Baldi as a faithful disciple of Pietro da Cortona, close to his fellow pupil Ciro Ferri.

Baldi’s high reputation has not survived, and modern historians have criticized his works as poorly executed and slightly grotesque. Yet his conscious deformation of the figure reflects an anti-classical, expressionist tendency that has parallels in the art of Giacinto Brandi, Giovanni Battista Benaschi and Bonaventura Lamberti and in the early works of Daniel Seiter. A full evaluation of his work is hampered by the lack of a clear distinction between his paintings and those of his numerous pupils, of whom the most faithful were Filippo Luzi (1665–1720) and Giovanni Battista Lenardi (1656–1704). His contribution to some of Cortona’s works also remains to be clarified.

Ursula Verena Fischer Pace. "Baldi, Lazzaro." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T005878 (accessed March 21, 2012).

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