Bartolomeo della Porta, Fra’

BARTOLOMEO della PORTA, friar. — Painter, b. in Florence in 1475, d. at Bagni S. Filippo on 31 October 1517. Knowledge of his first period of activity is scant, since, moved by Savonarola’s words, he himself destroyed his paintings of profane subjects; he nevertheless appears to have been connected with fifteenth-century schemes learned ROSSELLI, COSIMO (v.)—from which, however, he was already free in the Last Judgment of 1499 (Florence, Museum of S. Marco), whose composition in broad planes was to have a wide influence. With this work he interrupted his activity, following the political events and the death of Savonarola, in order to enter as a novice (1500) into the Dominican Order. He began painting again in 1504 with the Ap-

pearance of the Virgin to s. Bernardo; during this period he came into contact with the art of Leonardo and Michelangiolo, and approached the forms of both, while not remaining uninfluenced by the manner of Perugino and Raffaello. He nevertheless viewed these various styles (as well as colour, for which the journey to Venice in 1508 is held to have been of great importance) in relation to that plasticity characteristic of the Florentine tradition, to which his temperament kept him attached. In both the first and the second period of his activity, up to 1511, he often worked in collaboration with Mariotto Albertinelli.

His compositional equilibrium was, for only a brief period, altered under Roman influence (1512) by a search for monumentality (see S. Pietro and S. Paolo, Vatican Picture Gallery; S. Marco in the Pitti Gallery; Virgin of Mercy at Lucca); in his final years he returned to his former schemes. The following also deserve mention: The Pietà in the Pitti Gallery; The Presentation in the Temple in the Vienna Gallery; The Marriage of s. Caterina at the Uffizi, in addition to the numerous admirable drawings in various public and private collections.