BARATTA, PIETRO. – Sculptor, who lived in Venice between the end of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th. He reacted against the ostentatious Baroque spread in Venice by the Fleming Giusto Le Curt (of whom B. was probably a pupil) and, drawing on sixteenth-century examples (Sansovino and Campagna), established the taste that was a prelude to Neoclassicism. His principal work is the bas-relief depicting S. Sebastiano on the high altar of the church of the same name. He collaborated on the sculptural decoration of the façade of S. Staè (1709).
BIBL.: U. V., s. V. in Thieme-Becker, II, p. 457; W. Arslan, Sculture ignote di Giovanni Marchiori, in Bollettino d'Arte, 2nd series, 5 (1925–26), pp. 437–39. Elsa Gerlini