BAGLIONE, GIOVANNI. - Painter and writer, b. in Rome ca. 1573 and d. there in 1644. He painted one of the great altars in St. Peter's (ca. 1606); in St. Mary Major the Pauline Chapel (1611-12); also in St. Peter's the Gregorian Chapel (1628). He also worked for Mantua and for other Italian cities (Savona, Spoleto, Perugia, Naples), and sent works abroad (France, Holland, Spain). He was in lively conflict with Caravaggio, with whom he had a lawsuit. From him, however, he suffered influences that strengthened and enlivened his style. Among other works, the Amore is attributed to him
Sacristy of the Federico Museum (Berlin), the St. Sebastian from S. Maria dell'Orto, the St. Francis Dying with the Angel formerly in the Borghese collection, the Christ Mocked (Borghese Gallery).
As a writer on art he chiefly entrusted his name to the Vite dei pittori, scultori ed architetti, dal pontificato di Gregorio XIII nel 1572 fino a' tempi di papa Urbano VIII nel 1642 (Rome 1642). A manuscript of these, with marginal notes by Bellori, is to be found in the Vatican Library and was recently (1936) published in facsimile. The actual treatment is divided into five days, in which the biographies of the artists are distributed according to the pontificates of Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, Clement VIII, Paul V, and Urban VIII. The occasional arrangement of the material is in antithesis to the author's intention of continuing Vasari's Vite, whose inner historical framework he seems to miss. The exposition is rapid, almost dry, devoid of rhetoric: few biographical details and some stylistic assessments, at times penetrating. Regarding Caravaggio (v.) he alludes to the polemic between naturalists and mannerists, and to his biography, already extensive in itself, he adds those of the followers Saraceni and Valentin. Also extensive is the biography of his chief adversary, the Cavaliere d'Arpino. This work is of primary importance as a source for art history, all the more so since the information it provides is often rare, at times unpublished, almost always precise, sometimes extended to some foreigner (for example, to Rubens, of whom it traces the earliest biography). To B. is owed, moreover, a little book entitled Le Nove chiese di Roma (1639), in which are considered the churches dearest to the devotion of pilgrims: among others, St. Peter's, St. Paul's Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major.