BATONI, POMPEO GIROLAMO

BATONI, POMPEO GIROLAMO. - Painter, b. at Lucca on 25 Jan. 1708, d. at Rome on 4 Feb. 1787. At Rome, where he went in 1728, he studied the sculptures of the Vatican and the paintings of Raffaello; c. 1739 he painted his first important work, the canvas of the Madonna and four saints for the church of S. Gregorio al Celio. Around 1740 he executed the Magdalene (at Dresden until 1945); in 1769 the Fall of Simon Magus for St. Peter’s Basilica, now, however, in s. Maria degli Angeli. The Prodigal Son in the Turin picture gallery dates from about 1773. At Rome B. worked on the decoration of the Quirinale Palace and the Colonna Palace. Much sought after as a portraitist, B. portrayed almost all the princes who came to Rome. His portraits of Benedetto XIV, Clemente XIII, and Pio VI are also celebrated. In eighteenth-century Rome, B., together with Mengs, was the most acclaimed painter. He differs from his rival in the grace, softness of forms, refinement of drawing and colour, and sentimentality of expression—qualities which, absent or nearly so in Mengs, link B. far more closely to Rococo than to Neoclassicism.