Agostino Mitelli
Italian, 1609 - 1660
Painter. He and his collaborator angelo michele Colonna are renowned as pre-eminent exponents of quadratura, the painting of illusionistic architectural perspectives. They learnt this art from Girolamo Curti, who had made a speciality of it in Bologna. The two artists created a range of ceiling enframements and decorative ensembles that were architecturally the most unified and rational of their time. This achievement, recognized as the ‘Bolognese style’, was widely applauded and imitated until the advent of Neo-classicism, when it was criticized for excesses and violations of architectural probity.
Early in his collaboration with Colonna and Curti, Mitelli revealed a superior talent for design and decoration, and he more frequently took the role of quadraturista, leaving that of figurista to Colonna. Colonna and Mitelli’s major frescoes include the Sala Grande, Palazzo Spada, Rome (1635–6), the Jupiter reception room, Palazzo Pitti, Florence (1639–41), and the Grande Salone at the Palazzo d’Este, Sassuolo, near Modena (1646–7). Mitelli returned to the last of these palaces in 1650 to assist in, if not to initiate, the decoration of the Galleria with frescoes by Jean Boulanger and his Bolognese assistants. The partners also worked in the chapel of the Rosary, S Domenico, Bologna (1654–6), and the Palazzo Balbi, Genoa (1655). In 1657–8 Philip IV of Spain summoned them to Madrid, where their introduction of the art of fresco was to influence the development of Spanish decorative painting. However, their Pandora ceiling (c. 1659) for the Hall of Mirrors in the Alcázar is destroyed, and all that remains of their Spanish work is Mitelli’s modello (c. 1659) for the ceiling of a loggia in the Casón de Buen Retiro, Madrid.
Mitelli executed many perspective view paintings (all untraced) and three ornamental prints. He also left a large number of quadratura drawings (most in Berlin, Kstbib. & Mus.), which possess all the elegance and refinement of his frescoes. Followers and imitators carried his style into the 18th century, and it has been claimed that he influenced Bolognese architects and stuccoists.
E. Feinblatt. "Mitelli." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T058658pg1 (accessed April 11, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
Italian, 1692 - 1770
Italian, 1606 - 1680
